President's Message

Dear Fellows

The celebration of our 20th anniversary in Madrid and Mallorca, Spain was a success. Our Founding Fellows were recognized, our new inductees were welcomed and the local community was engaged to consider the future of tourism given current global economic conditions. The conference included many different sessions and participants this year, and with such a full program I think we all left Mallorca in good spirits but quite exhausted.  Photographs of the conference will be on the website soon. Thank you to all who participated and assisted with the creation of the 2009 conference – it was truly a team effort.  We are now ready to work on the future of the Academy, and are happy to report that Memoranda of Understanding have been signed with the hosts of our next two conferences: Taiwan in 2011 and Portugal in 2013. 

We also made a number of important decisions for the Academy’s future. The minutes of the three 2009 Business Meetings held in Spain are included in this newsletter. Key motions that were passed by Fellows were: 1) to perform a membership review of all Fellows by September 30, 2009; 2) to work on ways to collaborate with UNWTO; 3) to review the Nominations process; 4) to investigate linkages with other learned societies; and 5) to charge a conference fee at future Academy conferences.

An important item that will require Fellows’ attention in the next few weeks is the vote of Nominees to the Academy.  This year with the change in bylaws, Nominees were required to attend the conference and give presentations, and a secret ballot was taken by Fellows on each Nominee. These results will be presented to all Fellows for their consideration as they vote.  We include a strong caveat that these votes were based on the candidates’ presentations and not necessarily the entire dossier that is available for review on the website (www.tourismscholars.org).  (Election letter with username and password has been sent out separately.)  It is critical that all Fellows refer to Nominees’ material before making their decisions. For your information, we have fewer Nominees than the available slots before we reach our cap of 75 Fellows.

A number of Working Groups formed in Spain are continuing to work on various Academy matters of importance for us to move forward as a vibrant organization.  If you are interested to join one of these Working Groups we welcome your participation. Please contact the Committee Chairs as follows:

Nominations Process Review Committee – Larry Dwyer; 
Innovation Committee (Connections to other Learned Societies) - Gianna Moscardo;
Academy Rituals - Steve Smith;
Funding and Financial Development - Haiyan Song;
2011 Conference Host Community Liaison - Geoff Wall;
UNWTO Collaboration - Valene Smith. 

The two Standing Committees this year are:

Nominations Committee (Rick Perdue, Dick Butler, Charles Goeldner)
Membership Committee (Jafar Jafari, Bill Gartner and Nelson Graburn).

Thank you to all the above Fellows for their work to move the Academy forward on these issues.

Doug Pearce and Dick Butler also deserve thanks as they continue to work on the book.  They need your final chapters by September 30, 2009.  Papers for possible inclusion in Tourism Analysis should go to Muzzo Uysal  by the same date (see minutes for details).

Best wishes to all for a productive and enjoyable year ahead. If you have ideas or suggestions for future initiatives for the Academy please drop me an email. I would be delighted to hear from you.

Pauline
psheldon@hawaii.edu