2011 New Academy Fellows

David Airey

David Airey is Professor of Tourism Management at the University of Surrey. Apart from his academic career, which started at Surrey in 1975, he also spent eight years with the UK Government, with particular responsibility for tourism education nationally, and for three years was technical adviser for a European Union funded tourism project in Poland.  He has also carried out many consultancy and advisory projects in different parts of the world and for governmental and non-governmental agencies. At Surrey he served as Head of School and as University Pro Vice-Chancellor. He retired from his full-time position in 2009 but retains a part-time role at Surrey, involved in teaching and research and is visiting Professor at the University of Central Lancashire. His main academic interests relate to tourism policy and organisation and tourism education and he has published widely on these topics, many in top ranked ABS journals. He is co-editor of the first textbook on tourism education and has recently co-authored a text on policy making for tourism in China. He has supervised more than 20 PhD students to successful completion.  He is an elected Academician of the Academy of Learned Societies for the Social Sciences, Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Fellow of the Tourism Society, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Fellow of the Institute of Hospitality, and member of the International Association of Scientific Experts in Tourism and the Tourism Research Centre. He has served as Chair of a number of associations including the subject association for tourism. He was co-chair of the Education and Science Council of the UN World Tourism Organization (2008-2011) and elected Vice-President of its Committee of Affiliate Members. In 2004 he received the EuroCHRIE President’s award for outstanding achievement and in 2006 the United Nations WTO Ulysses Award for his contribution to tourism education and research.

Alan A. Lew

Alan A. Lew is a Professor in the Department of Geography, Planning, and Recreation at Northern Arizona University where he teaches courses in geography, urban planning and tourism development. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) and his education included attending universities in Hong Kong, Singapore, Hawaii and Oregon, as well as his home state of California. As a result, his research interests focus on tourism in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly in Southeast Asia and greater China, with topics covering community tourism planning, tourist movements, sustainable tourism, heritage tourism, tourism geography.

His international interests have included two Fulbright positions, in Singapore and Malaysia (forthcoming), visiting lecturer positions in Germany and Singapore, external examiner positions in Malaysia and Hong Kong, and conference co-organizing in China (biennially since 2001), Arizona, Martinique, and forthcoming in Malaysia and Hong Kong.

Dr. Lew has authored over 60 articles and book chapters and has written and edited several books, including Tourism in China (1995 and 2003), Sustainable Tourism: A Geographical Perspective (1998), Tourism and Gaming on American Indian Lands (1998), Companion to Tourism (2004), Seductions of Place (2005), Understanding and Managing Tourism Impacts: An Integrated Approach (2009), and World Regional Geography: Human Mobilities, Tourism Destinations, Sustainable Environments (2011), among other. He is the founding editor-in-chief of the academic journal, Tourism Geographies (since 1999) and has served in leadership positions for the Tourism Commission of the International Geographical Union (IGU) and the Recreation, Tourism and Sport (RTS) specialty group of the Association of American Geographers (AAG).

He has been using the internet in his teaching since 1995 and has been a campus leader in online teaching technology. Alan Lew’s classes, publications, professional association and conference involvement, social media and other professional activities can be found at http://AlanLew.com.

Karl Wöber

Karl Wöber is Full Professor and Founding President of MODUL University Vienna.  He acquired his PhD from the Vienna University of Economics and Business where he became Associate Professor and Deputy Department Head at the Institute for Tourism and Leisure Studies in 2000. Over the last 20 years Karl’s interdisciplinary research focused on computer support in tourism and hospitality marketing and management, decision support systems, and economics. This research led to the development of a comprehensive tourism marketing and management information system (www.tourmis.info) which is currently in use by more than 16,000 registered users in Europe and draws upon his expertise in tourism statistics, benchmarking, forecasting, marketing, and strategic planning.

As a founding member of MODUL University Vienna, Karl was responsible for developing the university’s accreditation proposal and for developing several curricula in the areas of tourism management, public governance, new media technology, and sustainable development.

He is an associate editor of the Journal of Information Technology and Tourism, editorial board member of Journal of Tourism Research, and the Journal of Modeling in Management. He was conference chairman of the International City Tourism Conference and the International Conference for Information and Communication Technologies in the Travel and Tourism Industry (ENTER) in 2002 and is frequently invited as keynote speaker to numerous scientific and industry conferences; He also gave guest lectures at Bocconi University, University of Lugano, St. Gallen University, University of Innsbruck, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Temple University, Texas A&M University, ESADE, and the University of Surrey. 

For more than 10 years he is a Technical Advisor of European Cities Marketing and the European Travel Commission, the two leading professional tourism networks in Europe.  In 2010, Karl Wöber received the Johann Strauss Gold Medal for his outstanding contributions for the development of tourism in Vienna.