Speakers

Ismael Gómez-Talal holds a Ph.D. in Tourism (Inter-University, Cum Laude) and is finalizing a second Ph.D. in Information and Communication Technologies at Rey Juan Carlos University (URJC), Spain. His research focuses on interpretable data science (XAI) and machine learning applications in hospitality and tourism, with emphasis on revenue management, demand forecasting, and gambling analytics. He is a researcher at URJC, collaborating on multidisciplinary R&D projects with hospitality and healthcare partners—covering topics such as hotel upselling, restaurant food-waste reduction, and dual pathology in gambling disorder.

Ismael has published in high-impact venues including Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence, IEEE Access, and the Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology, where his paper on food-waste reduction earned the 2025 “Paper of the Year” award. His international research stays include UNLV (USA) on predictive models for risk and revenue optimization in gaming, the University of Aveiro (Portugal) on hotel upselling (AUIP Magallanes Scholarship), ENS Paris-Saclay (France) on advanced algorithmic methods (Embassy of France scholarship), and collaborations with LMU Munich (Germany) on state-of-the-art XAI for transparent and auditable responsible gambling systems.