A look back at the 2024 ICHRIE Global Conference

The 2024 ICHRIE Global Conference was held 24-26 July 2024 in beautiful Montréal, Québec, Canada.

Welcomes, Check-In, and the 2024 Opening Ceremony

A special thank you to our hosting school, Institut de tourisme et d’hôtellerie du Québec

For over 50 years, the Institut de tourisme et d’hôtellerie du Québec (ITHQ) has been Canada’s leading school in tourism, hotel management and restaurant services. Meeting the highest standards in the industry and equipped with unique facilities, it also has two research units and a hospitality consulting centre. In addition to its diploma courses, the ITHQ offers training to professionals, services to businesses and institutions, and workshops for the general public.

The ICHRIE Family extends a special thanks to the administration, staff, facutly and students for welcoming us, extending warm hospitality, long hours of work, support and for being this year’s ICHRIE hosting school!

Opening Land Acknowledgement with Michael Kanentase Rice

Indigenous Quebec has a history of rich and diverse cultures that dates back to the 1500s. Montreal, known as Tiohtià:ke, is a meeting place for many First Nations and the Kanien’keha (Mohawk) nation are recognized as the traditional stewards of Montreal’s land and waters. Therefore, it has become very popular for international conferences to open their meetings by having a representative of the First Nations community to recite the land acknowledgement and offer a welcome or thankful blessing.

About Michael Kanentase Rice:

Originally from Kahnawake and of Mohawk origin, Michael has 40 years of experience as a knowledge keeper and is trilingual in English, French and Kanien’keha. He was an attaché for the late great Chief Joe Norton, and he worked for the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake Project Development on Tourism in Kahnawake from 1996 to 1998. He is also a history and geography teacher, a Native Studies specialist, a curriculum consultant and researcher, having done speaking engagements at colleges and universities in Canada and the United States.

Michael won a National Endowment for the Humanities first place award as Lead Mohawk Researcher in the United States. He worked on the Futureman Satellite series in Hollywood as a native historic expert. He was also the Ohentob Karihwatehkwen and historical consultant on the Peel Project for the City of Montreal in 2019. Michael just finished a series of native history podcasts that will be broadcast on local radio station K103.7FM.

Cirque Performance with Sarah Louis-Jean

The memorable performance was presented by renowned cirque artist Sarah Louis-Jean. A professional contemporary artist, Sarah Louis-Jean travels the world showcasing her many talents, including cirque, a Boleadoras specialty, percussion, acrobatics, choreography, pyrotechnics, Poi manipulation and acting!

She has performed on 5 continents for special events and for prestigious companies, tours and festivals such as Cirque du Soleil, Cirque Éloize, Céline Dion, Germany’s Circus Roncalli / Krystall Palast, Flirt de Cirque Australia, Best of Broadway Atlantic City and the Canadian Olympic Winter Games opening ceremony to name just a few. In addition to performing at all of Montreal’s famous Montreal festivals, Sarah has appeared on the television shows So You Think You Can Dance Canada, Dancing With The Stars Canada, Just For Laughs Gags and Quebec’s Chanteurs Masqués (Masked Singers).

One of Sarah’s main featured specialties is Boleadoras – originally used for hunting by Argentinian Gauchos, it is an apparatus that beats rhythm in time to the choreography. She is one of the rare female global solo specialists in this discipline and holds the first Guinness World Record for the quickest Boleadoras hits in the world. Sarah was also the Official Canadian Guinness, World Records Spokesperson in 2021, representing the book in all Canadian television and newspaper media as well as holding a conference in New York City about her career.

Another one of her signature performances is acrobatics on the Weggsphere apparatus. There are only 30 Weggsphere apparatus in the world and Sarah has one of them. It is a ground-based rotating hoop in which she displays an elegant mix of poise, balance, strength and acrobatics. Another discipline is manipulating LED Poi sticks which combine technology and cirque, highlighting a variety of visual images projected on the diameter of the rotating Poi. Sarah demonstrated her expertise in these three disciplines during her performance at the 2024 ICHRIE Global Conference opening ceremony.