Meet MBA student Igor Gula - Sales Manager and co-editor of ''Open Tourism''

MBA student Igor Gula is not only the Sales Manager at Hotel Zeitgeist Vienna, he is co-editor of a new book, Open Tourism:  Open Innovation, Crowdsourcing and Co-Creation Challenging the Tourism Industry. We caught up with him to find out about his new publication and impressions of the MBA at MODUL University Vienna.   

You are the Sales Manager at Hotel Zeitgeist Vienna – what are your main duties, and how does your MBA education help you in your position?

As Sales Manager at Hotel Zeitgeist Vienna I am responsible for the corporate customer service and support. This means that I am taking care of our current corporate guests on the one hand and addressing and acquiring new ones on the other hand. Our main goal is to offer unique travel experiences to all our guests, to satisfy their personal needs and to make them happy.

My MBA education helped me to understand the processes in our hotel even more in terms of management and organization as well as to exchange my experiences with people from all over the globe working in many different industries. At the end, my studies enabled me to meet wonderful people, to make new friends and to grow personally and professionally.

Why did you choose the MBA program at MODUL University Vienna?

After visiting a TourMIS workshop at the MODUL University during my studies in Salzburg, I was fascinated by MODUL’s internationality and reputation. Later on, I applied for the MBA scholarship assigned by the tourism consulting company Kohl & Partner and became the lucky one who was given the opportunity to study at MODUL University.

I believe that the MBA program offers an excellent way to expand one’s knowledge and experience as well as to set up new collaborations and networks. In addition, it was very useful to meet well-known lecturers from all over the world and to discuss with highly experienced colleagues from different areas. I personally appreciated the mandatory presence in all MBA courses. Because of that, we were able to interact with our lecturers and other students face to face.

Your book examines the concepts of open innovation, crowdsourcing and co-creation from a holistic point of view and analyzes them considering their suitability to the tourism industry – how you get involved in writing an academic book alongside your hotel career?

I wrote my master thesis about “Crowdsourcing in the Tourism Industry, Using the Example of Ideas Competitions in Tourism Destinations” at the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences. During my final examination, Roman Egger – who was my supervisor at that time – had the idea of editing a book on the subject with me. Later on, we asked Dominik Walcher, who is also a professor at the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences, to join the two of us.

After my studies, I was working as banquet manager, then as an operations manager and finally as sales manager. Sometimes, it was challenging to work in the hotel industry, to study at the MODUL University and to be in the role of an editor. However, I have received great help and support from all people involved in my professional and personal life and I am very thankful for that!

You are one of three editors – what was your main focus in producing the book?

Roman, Dominik and I, we make a great team and over the time we became friends! Roman is our Tourism and eTourism expert, Dominik our Open Innovation and Mass Customization expert and me, I was the project manager of our book.

Our main goal was to bring the topics of Open Innovation and Tourism together and to point out the challenges and opportunities for the tourism industry in terms Open Innovation, Crowdsourcing and Co-Creation. For us, it was very important to offer interested audience the possibility to understand the concepts, models and methods of Open Tourism and to present case studies and real-life examples how to implement Open Innovation, Crowdsourcing and Co-Creation into the tourism industry.

Mr Gula will be presenting his new book at Hotel Zeitgeist on April 20th at 6:30pm (in German), all are welcome!

Photo L-R: Igor Gula, Roman Egger, Dominik Walcher