MU President Karl Wöber awarded membership in the Academy for the Study of Tourism

At the apex of tourism scholarship stands the International Academy for the Study of Tourism, a global network of highly accomplished scholars with the goal of furthering the academic research and professional investigation of tourism.

Their mandate reaches from the conference to the cruise ship, as the application of tourism research findings is encouraged at all levels of the industry. Incorporated as a non-profit corporation, the official headquarters are at the School of Hotel and Tourism Management of Hong Kong Polytechnic University, a partner university of MODUL University Vienna.

From June 5-10th in Taiwan, the Academy held their biennial conference to discuss new trends and developments in tourism research pertaining to a specific topic. This year, ‘’Interdisciplinary Bridges in Tourism Scholarship” was the theme at hand; in addition to various lectures and presentations by current fellows, ten distinguished professors were nominated to become new members of the Academy, and had the chance to present their important contributions to the field of tourism research. With a limited membership of 75 fellows, competition is tough as only a few new scholars are voted in by current fellows at each conference. From this strong field of candidates, Professor David Airey (University of Surrey), and Professor Alan Lew (Northern Arizona University), and Professor Karl Wöber (MODUL University Vienna) topped the votes and were invited to join this most prestigious group of tourism scientists.

In particular, the members of the Academy recognized Prof. Wöber’s significant long-term contributions in developing intelligent decision support tools for providing travel recommendations to consumers and for developing TourMIS, a system for sharing knowledge among tourism scientists, policy makers, and managers.

In this upper echelon of academia, only three Austrian professors have so far succeeded in becoming fellows of the Academy for the Study of Tourism. Prof.Wöber joins Prof. Josef Mazanec and Prof.Egon Smeral in this illustrious trio, both of whom are also faculty members of MODUL University Vienna. Such esteemed international recognition does not come lightly, and the accolades garnered by our faculty are a strong indicator for the high quality of research-oriented education at MU. We heartily congratulate Prof. Wöber on his achievement!

Fellows in this image are: Dimitrios Buhalis (Bournemouth University), Valene Smith (California State University), Julio Aramberri (Drexel University), Graham Dann (Finnmark University College), Douglas Frechtling and Donald Hawkins (George Washington University), David Weaver (Griffith University), Erik Cohen (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Kaye Chon, Cathy Hsu, Bob McKercher, Haiyan Song, and Stephen Witt (Hong Kong Polytechnic University), Philip Pearce(James Cook University), Norbert Vanhove (KU Leuven), Geoffrey Crouch (La Trobe University), Allan Williams (London Metropolitan University), Egon Smeral and Karl Wöber (MODUL University Vienna), Alan Lew (Northern Arizona University), Alistair Morrison (Purdue University), Alison Gill (Simon Fraser University), Daniel Fesenmaier (Temple University), Shinji Yamashita (The University of Tokyo), Eduardo Fayos-Sola (United Nations World Tourism Organization), Nelson Graburn (University of California), Juanita Liu and Pauline Sheldon (University of Hawaii), William (Bill) Gartner (University of Minnesota), Larry Dwyer (University of New South Wales), Anton Gosar(University of Primorska), Tom Baum, Kit Jenkins, and Richard Butler (University of Strathclyde), John Tribe and David Airey (University of Surrey), Eugeni Aguiló-Pérez (University of the Balearic Islands), Jafar Jafari (University of Wisconsin-Stout), Brian King (Victoria University), Lindsay Turner(Victoria University), Richard (Rick) Perdue (Virginia Tech University).