Member Activities

Doug Frechtling

Doug addressed the Annual Meeting of the Professional Convention Management Association, January 12 in New Orleans, on “Economic Factors Affecting Global Meetings”. The presentation was based on research he has conducted with Vantage Strategy, Inc. on the economic and financial variables influencing attendance at international conferences by U.S. delegates and those from the host countries in the coming year.

He also presented one of the Keynote Presentations at the 5th International Conference on Tourism Statistics, sponsored by the World Tourism Organization, a specialized agency of the United Nations. His paper was entitled, “Clarifying and Extending the Tourism Satellite Account Brand” and was presented on March 31, 2009, to the 350 Conference delegates assembled in Bali, Indonesia, from more than 60 countries.

Myriam Jansen-Verbeke

The conference on Progress in Tourism studies, held at the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium) on 23-24 April was organized in the context of Myriam’s Emeritate. Having started her academic career in Geography the sixties, time has come to make place for the younger generation.

Looking backwards at the recognition of tourism studies as a valid academic discipline, a remarkably slow process is seen. However, the dynamics of a new leisure economy, the rapid expansion of the tourism industry and its connections with cultural activities and retail trade have definitely changed the peoples’ views, eventually influencing the academic community and university boards. Some ‘younger’ universities in Europe took the lead to include tourism, planning and marketing, whereas more traditional universities were reluctant to consider tourism studies as a full academic discipline. Innovative funding by the private sector - the tourism industry- for endowed chairs, or EU funding has enabled some universities to develop an academic curriculum for tourism, recreation and leisure, and thus attracting a growing number of students.

Now 2009- the appreciation for tourism as an academic field in its own right has gained momentum and this is an evolution to which Myriam and her colleagues have contributed considerably. The papers and presentations at the conference were opening new perspectives. With a very warm and most grateful word of thanks to the fellows of the Academy who bothered to travel a long way to be there to share their views with the upcoming ‘tourism specialists’. Hopefully our intellectual heritage is in good hands.

Peter Murphy

Peter has retired from full-time academic life and stepped down from his academic position at the end of 2008 as an Emeritus Professor at La Trobe University, where he continues to supervise some Ph.D. students, giving a short post-graduate course on ‘Resort Management’. He is winding up a national CRC study into the short-break holiday market, and he is available for short and intensive teaching/mentoring opportunities, especially if the subject of his last two books is of interest, namely ‘Strategic Management’ and ‘Resort Management’.

Chris Ryan

Chris recently gave the key note paper at the Conference, ‘The Tourist Experience’ hosted by the University of Central Lancashire in the United Kingdom. He took advantage of that stay to also visit the University of Wales Institute of Cardiff where he holds the title of Honorary Professor of the University of Wales. He also had to spend several hundred dollars on physiotherapy as a result of a trapped nerve which caused him some pain – and by that he does not mean the loss to his wallet! Chris has also been busy in Dubai where he is conducting research with Dr Ivan Ninov from the Emirates Academy on issues pertaining to destination image, while one his first projects from Dubai has now seen publication in the Journal of Sustainable Tourism. In addition he is conducting research on issues pertaining to lake pollution and tourism in China with colleagues Kaye Chon and Gu Huimin. Two recent books have been published – the first is an edited book with Professor Gu Huimin entitled Tourism in China: Destinations, Cultures and Communities published by Routldege, New York. Geoff Wall has contributed a chapter, but many of the chapters have been by mainland Chinese academics who do not write English – and this was deliberate as an attempt to bridge the gap between those colleagues and their western counterparts. The second book International Hotel Chains was written by Chris with two of his colleagues from Waikato University, Dr Asad Mohsin and Dr Timothy Lockyer, and appears in both English and Mandarin with the translation undertaken by Professor Gu Huimin. It is published by Beijing Tourism Press and is designed as a series of case studies for Chinese students studying hospitality management both within and outside China. Other research undertaken by Chris is to be published by Journal of Ssutainable Management (including work at Wulingyuan undertaken with colleagues from Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou), while he has commenced a long-term project on a Daoist community in Anhui Province. Chris says that now he can say in perfect Mandarin – ‘Do you speak English?’ as a result of his work in China. Currently Chris is in Taiwan where he is speaking at Asia University and National Sports University, while recently four of his doctoral students at Waikato have successfully completed their doctoral degrees.

Finally, colleagues might be interested to learn that he continues to edit Tourism Management which in 2008 had over 810,000 downloads of articles and in 2009 will introduce the anti-plagiarism software Cross-Check for all of its articles. He wishes all colleagues well and apologises for not being to attend the Academy Conference in Spain, a country he knew very well while he lived in the UK and which he visited frequently.

Lindsay Turner and Stephen Witt

Lindsay and Stephen have recently completed the publication Asia Pacific Tourism Forecasts 2009-2011, published by the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) based in Bangkok. The book now includes detailed market by market forecasts for 41 countries in the region including the USA and Canada. In addition to the national forecasts there are regional state forecasts for Canada, China, Malaysia, Mexico, Thailand, and the USA. There is also detailed accommodation projections, growth analysis, receipts forecasts and for 12 countries departure forecasts.

This is the 7th publication for the forecasts in the PATA series on Asia Pacific that has set a new standard in the level of accuracy for arrivals forecasting, and is widely sought after by the tourism industry sector.

Muzzo Uysal

Muzzo received the Michael D. Olsen Research Achievement Award given annually for career contribution to the HTM academy at the 14th Graduate Conference in Hospitality and Tourism, Jan. 3-6, 2009, Las Vegas. This award, named in honor of HTM Professor Emeritus Mike Olsen, recognized Muzzo for his outstanding career research contributions, including his own research productivity, his service on editorial boards, and as a graduate student mentor.

He also received the Lifetime Achievement Award in Tourism Research given by Chinese Tourism Management Association (CTMA), December 5, 2008, Taiwan. This award was created by the CTMA – Taiwan to honor and recognize distinguished researchers of tourism for their sustained contribution to literature and outstanding service to the field of tourism. As part of this award, Dr. Uysal also spent 8 days visiting Taiwan and lecturing at four different universities there. The award ceremony was held at National Kaohsiung Hospitality College.

Geoff Wall

During the past year, Geoff has been on sabbatical leave. He has used this time to further his work on indigenous people, heritage and tourism, mostly in China, including Taiwan. This has included the writing of a series of papers, mostly with his former students Teresa Tao and Li Yang, related to ethnic tourism and sustainable livelihoods. He will soon begin his last two terms of teaching at the University of Waterloo, followed by a non-teaching period before retiring officially on 1 January 2011. However, it is expected that a working relationship with the University of Waterloo will be retained.

At the time of writing, he is about to go to Hainan, China, to provide input into a provincial ecotourism strategy. He has accepted a Visiting Professorship at the University of Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy (with an emphasis on rural and cultural tourism) and he has also been awarded a Visiting Professorship by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. This will be held at the Chinese Academy of Environment and Geography, Urumqi, Xinjiang Province and will focus on aspects of tourism planning and management in protected natural areas.

Arch Woodside

Arch has edited Volume 2 of Advances in Culture, Tourism, & Hospitality Research. This volume contributes to the general theme of this Advances series by offering original, eclectic theories and field studies that focus on culture, tourism, and hospitality research. Volume 2 includes chapters without length restrictions, giving authors the opportunity to provide more nuanced explorations of theory, method, and their findings, and so create articles that sharpen and deepen thinking to a greater extent than is usually possible in journal-length articles. Unlike handbooks of original essays, this Advances series aims to include chapters on topics and coverage heretofore missing from the literature, but that nevertheless build on prior scholarly contributions. Consequently, the primary objective for Volume 2 is to provide must-read chapters unavailable from other sources – a wellspring providing exceptional insights and tools for applied researchers and scholars focusing on culture, tourism, and hospitality.