Board Elections

See current IFITT Board 

IFITT invites Nominations for new board members for the election in 2012 

The next IFITT AGM in Helsingborg is approaching and with it the election of new IFITT board members. Here is an overview of the current IFITT board:

1. *Dimitrios Buhalis 2010 - 2012
2. Wolfram Hopken 2011 - 2013 (last term)
3. Berendien Lubbe 2011 - 2013
4. *Rodolfo Baggio 2010 - 2012
5. *Lorenzo Cantoni 2010 - 2012
6. *Andrew Frew 2010 - 2012 (last term)
7. *Ulrike Gretzel 2010 - 2012
8. *Rob Law 2010 - 2012
9. Tinkara Pavlovcic 2011 - 2013
10.*Paul Baron 2010 - 2012 (co-opted)
11.Nicholas Hall 2011 - 2013 (co-opted)
12.Matthias Fuchs 2011 - 2013 (co-opted)

* = term ends on next AGM

Thus, we have the following vacancies:
1. The president
2. Five ordinary board members



All IFITT members are invited to stand for election for the position of the president and/or an ordinary board member.

 

The Board shall comprise of 9 members including:


• President (Obmann)
• Vice-President
• Treasurer
• along with six further Board members
• and up to a maximum of five co-opted members

Please send your application directly to me wolfram@hoepken.org., consisting of a short CV and a MOTIVATION FOR STANDING FOR THE IFITT BOARD AND KEY AREAS OF CONTRIBUTION (as one word document, 150-250 words). And please indicate the position for which you are applying (president / ordinary board member / both). Additionally, you need two IFITT members supporting your application. Supporting members should send a corresponding email directly to me.


Deadline for applications (and supporting emails) is 12 December 2011.

If you have any questions don't hesitate to contact me at wolfram@hoepken.org.

Best,
The IFITT Election Committee
Wolfram Hopken
Berendien Lubbe
Rob Law
 

IFITT Board Candidates for 2012

For president:   Dimitrios Buhalis 

 

Candidates for Board Member:

 

Ulrike Gretzel

Rodolfo Baggio

Dimitris Serifis

Rosanne Leung 

Allessandro Inversini

Paul Baron

 

Candidates bios and contribution 

 

 
Dimitrios Buhalis for IFITT President

Professor Dimitrios Buhalis is a Strategic Management and Marketing expert with specialisation in Technology and Tourism. He is currently Established Chair in Tourism and Deputy Director of the International Centre for Tourism and Hospitality Research (ICTHR) at the School of Services Management at Bournemouth University and Professorial Observer at the Bournemouth University Senate. Professor Buhalis is leading eTourism research and is working with the Bournemouth team for introducing technology in all aspects of tourism research and teaching.
 
In 2009 he led Bournemouth University successfully through the UNWTO.TedQual Certification Process and is the BU representative to the United Nations World Tourism Organisation. In recognition of his contribution, he was elected in August 2009, as a member of the International Academy for the Study of Tourism. Dimitrios has followed and contributed to the IFITT development from the beginning, as a Founding Member and having served as Member of the Board (1996-2005) and Vice President (2000-2005). He was Chair of the Scientific Committee of the ENTER'98, ’99, and 2000 conferences on Tourism and Information Technology, as well as ENTER Destinations Chair for 2002 and ENTER Overall Chair in 2003, 2009 and 2010.
 
He was elected President of IFITT in 2010 and since then he has been leading the restructuring and relaunch of the organisation. He was previously Programme Leader MSc in Tourism Marketing and MSc in eTourism, Reader in Business Information Management and Leader of eTourism Research at the School of Management, University of Surrey. He was also a member of the University Senate (2003-2007) and the University Learning Technology Committee (2005-2007). Until September 2004, he was also Course Leader, MSc in eTourism and Director of the Centre for eTourism Research (CeTR). Dimitrios has also served as Adjunct Professor at the MBA in Hospitality Management at the IMHI (Cornell University-Ecole Superieure des Sciences Economiques et Commerciales ESSEC) in Paris since 1997, Visiting Professor at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China and Professor Associado at the University of Aveiro, Portugal in 2004. In 2007, he was also appointed Visiting Professor and Member of the University Assembly at Modul University in Vienna, Austria. He is regarded as an expert in the impacts of ICTs in the tourism industry, the management of tourism distribution channels as well as in strategic tourism marketing and management.
 
Dimitrios has been involved with a number of European Commission FP5 and FP6 projects and regularly advises the World Tourism Organisation, the World Tourism and Travel Council and the European Commission in the field of information technology and tourism. His latest assignment with Government and Public Sector organisations was to develop an eTourism Strategy for the Egyptian Tourism Authority and the Ministry of Tourism in Egypt as part of the Austrian Twinning project, whilst he recently completed a project on the development of Hotel School for the Government of Andorra.
 
Dimitrios is still an active tourism practitioner, listing the positions of Marketing Manager and Web master for his family Hotel Segas, Board of Directors of Aquis Hotels and Resorts SA, the fastest growing hotel chain in Greece managing 13 hotels in January 2010; non-Executive Director of yourholidays.com travel agency in his activities. He has also been advising private sector organisations such TUI, Opodo.com, YouTravel.com, on the strategic aspects of their business. He has written or co-edited a total of 14 books and more than 70 papers.


Motivation and Contribution:

 

I am seeking re-election as President of IFITT for the period 2012-2014. If elected this will be my second and last term and I would have completed 2 terms of 2 years as per our new constitution. In 2014 we will be celebrating 21 years of the ENTER conference and the organisation will be getting into adulthood. Having the responsibility and privilege to lead the IFITT Board in the 2010-2012 period I am really proud of our achievements and grateful for the support I have received from the Board, the membership and our partners. I feel that a second term as IFITT President will enable us to consolidate our achievements and strengthen the organisation in the global arena. Therefore I am asking for your support a and trust.

 

MAJOR ACHIEVEMENTS 2010-2012

 

AGENDA FOR 2012-2014

It will be a privileged to continue serving you as the IFITT President.


Dr. Ulrike Gretzel

Is an Associate Professor for Marketing at the Institute for Innovation in Business & Social Research, University of Wollongong and Director of the Laboratory for Intelligent Systems in Tourism (LIST). She received her Ph.D. in Communications from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and holds a Masters degree in International Business from the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration. Her research focuses on persuasion in human-technology interaction, experience design, use of technology for interpretation, adoption and use of social media, interorganizational information systems, and other issues related to the development and use of intelligent systems in tourism. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Park Service, TripAdvisor, the Bush Presidential Library and Museum, and a number of national, regional and local tourism organizations in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia. Dr. Gretzel has published her work in tourism, IT and eCommerce journals. She is the editor of the e-Review of Tourism Research and serves on the editorial board of nine other journals. She is currently a board member of IFITT and is mainly responsible for the IFITT awards but also helped revise the IFITT constitution. She has been involved in the organization of ENTER as a research track chair and co-chair and is currently chair of the 2012 PhD workshop.

 

Motivation and Contribution: 

I see my major contribution to IFITT in the area of research. I would like to strengthen existing efforts and explore new opportunities related to the mentoring of young scholars and scholars in developing countries, the use of IFITT as a platform for knowledge creation and exchange, and potential partnerships with other academic and professional organizations. 

 

Rodolfo Baggio

Holds a Laurea degree in Physics (MPhys) from the University of Milan (Italy) and a PhD in Tourism from the University of Queensland (Australia). After having performed research and teaching activities in Astrophysics and Radioastronomy, he has been engaged in the Information Technology field for more than thirty years and has worked for several companies in Italy and abroad. Since 1999 Rodolfo is professor (contracted) at the Bocconi University (Milan) where he teaches courses in computer science, information technology and systems, and quantitative research methods.

At Bocconi he is coordinator of the Information and Communication Technologies area at the Master in Economics and Tourism and research fellow at the Dondena Center for Research on Social Dynamics. He is also Visiting Professor at Bournemouth University (UK), and Assistant Professor at the University of Primorska (Koper, Slovenia) and has delivered courses and speeches to several national and international audiences. Rodolfo has carried out consulting activities in the field of information technologies, organization, and planning for private and public tourism organizations and has managed several international research projects.

More recently, his research interests have centred on the analysis of the social and technological network structures underlying the tourism activities and on the application of complexity theory and network analysis methods to the study of tourism destinations. He has held several lectures in national and international conferences and authored scientific and popular articles and books. He is member of the scientific board of several international conferences, reviewer for a number of scholarly journals and member of the editorial board of the Journal of Information Technology and Tourism, Service Business and Current Issues in Tourism (editor of the Letters section). He is member of the board of IFITT (International Federation for Information Technology and Travel & Tourism).

He has chaired the Information Technology and Tourism cross session at the IFIP (International Federation for Information Processing) World Computer Congress (Milan, 2008). He is chairman of the Industry Track at Enter 2010 and 2011 and overall chair at Enter 2012. He is member of the board of IFITT and president of its Italian chapter IFITTitaly, founding member of Società Internet, the Italian chapter of the Internet Society, and member of the Italian Physical Society.

Motivation and Contribution:

I have been member of IFITT for the last 10 years and on the board for the last two. Besides my personal contributions to IFITT and to the organization of the Enter conferences in which I’ve been involved, I think the whole team has done a good job in pushing the association forward. We have now a better structure and a wider acknowledgement in the field of what IFITT is and what it does. Also at a local level the association is gaining reputation and visibility with the formation of several chapters which are showing to be quite active. On this I have contributed with the establishment of the Italian chapter which has had already organized a series of successful events and is strengthening connections with the academic and the industrial world. If elected for the next term I wish to continue these activities and I am ready to actively contribute to the “well being” and to the growth of the association.

 

 

 

Dimitris Serifis

Dimitris Serifis in Business Development Director at Nelios.com a company that specialing on eBusiness Development, Internet Marketing, SEO, Social Media, eTourism. Experience includes: Founder - Managing Director at Ecotourism-greece.com; Founder - Business Development Director at Nelios.com; Founder - Managing Director at Paros-tours.gr; Web Operations Manager at Yourholidays.com; Managing a network of 100 travel portals of the company, developing an ads manager platform on the network, large PPC campaigns management, SEO of the website of the company; Owner at FUTUREWeb

Motivation and Contribution: 

Since 2010 I have been working closing with IFITT to develop and support the website and in 2011. I was instrumental in developing and leading the IFITTgreece chapter. I would like to continue this activity and be more centrally engaged in the board so we can take both technological support forward and the IFITT Greece activities to the centre of stage

 

 

 

Rosanna Leung  

Rosanna Leungis IT Consultant at the HS Travel International Co. Ltd. in Hong Kong. She has just submitted her PhD thesis and is waiting for her Viva. Before pursue her PhD in the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Rosanna has been working in hospitality and tourism IT industry for over 20 years with 13 years holding the IT Manager position. Working with both local and chain hotels in Hong Kong for years, Rosanna have been in charge several hotel openings, systems change-over, and data migration projects. She is also expertise in IT contingency planning and system auditing. In addition, she provided IT system consultancy and training services in hotels in Hong Kong and China. In 2000, her travel agent launched their first e-commerce website which allows user to check room rate and make email reservation inquiry. This is one of the first website in Hong Kong travel service industry. After servicing the industry for 20 years, Rosanna wants to share her industrial experience with the students therefore she decided to pursue her PhD and dedicate herself to the academia.

Motivation and Contribution:

I attended the ENTER conference since 2007 and I love to meet all the new and old faces every year. However, there were very limited number of Asian faces in ENTER therefore I would like to introduce IFITT to Asia, especially Mainland China, via social networking.

Key areas of contribution: Membership marketing and recruitment.

 

 


Alessandro Inversini 

Alessandro Inversini holds a PhD in Communication Sciences from Università della Svizzera italiana, Lugano, Switzerland, where he was Researcher and Executive Director of webatelier.net a research and development laboratory, which mainly works on new media in tourism communication. Alessandro is now Managing Director of ticinoinfo SA the Regional Competence Center for New Media in Tourism of Canton Ticino (CH) and Lecturer at Università della Svizzera italiana, Faculty of Communication Science. His fields of interest are communication technologies and eTourism and his research interests deal with destination online communication, eMarketing, web reputation, web2.0 and social media marketing.

Motivation and Contribution:

I would like to help IFITT to achieve two main goals: (i) to strengthen the relationship among existing IFITT members fostering the already interesting newsletter and if possible creating an online community where to share experiences, research ideas and research projects. (ii) progress even more on the communication and promotion in order to strengthen IFITT and ENTER community.

 

Paul Baron 

is Group Manager Online Marketing at Tourism Victoria, Australia. Tourism Victoria is the State Tourism Commission for Victoria and Melbourne.I have worked in online destination marketing for over 10 years. Prior to that I worked in business and information technology positions in companies that include BP, Mercury UK, Telstra and the Victorian State Department of Infrastructure. I'm currently President of the Australasian chapter of IFITT (International Federation of IT travel & Tourism) and co-opted to the Board of IFITT as Chapter Director. I have a BA (Economics) from Otago University, New Zealand.

Motivation and Contribution:

I have a long history of supporting the objectives of IFITT.  I am particularly interested in representing the interests of Industry and Government on the Board and also assisting in the alignment of research to the needs of these two groups. My main contribution has been in the knowledge, support and facilitation of IFITT chapters however I am happy to contribute in other ways as needed.

 

 

Elected and Coopted IFITT Board Members in 2011  

  

 

Nick Hall currently works as a consultant at the European Travel Commission (ETC), Brussels 

Nick Hall currently works as a consultant at the European Travel Commission (ETC) and has a unique insight into Europe’s tourism industry with daily exposure to the working practices and challenges faced by National Tourism Organisations in thirty-six countries. As the Online Marketing Manager, Nick is responsible for the recently redeveloped European destination portal, visiteurope.com, and coordinates the strategic planning of digital campaign activity in Brazil, Canada, USA and soon China. Nick’s role in ETC brings him in direct dialogue with the CEOs responsible for promoting tourism to Europe and with research and online marketing experts through his participation in ETC’s Marketing Intelligence Group and coordination of ETC’s Marketing and Technology Network (MTN). Additionally, he plays a pivotal role in organising ETC’s annual e-Business Academy, a two-day conference designed for destination marketeers to share knowledge and experience through seminars and workshop sessions. Prior to joining ETC, Nick wrote a six-month travel column in 2004 for the Guardian Newspaper, comparing low-cost airlines and the then new wave of low-cost destinations that came with them. He also ran a top ranking online travel programme, iPod Traveller, about European travel, before going on to set up his own company offering production and new media consulting services with clients such as TUIfly and London City Airport.



Motivation and Contribution


Whilst not a long standing member, I strongly support the work of IFITT and believe the organisation has many synergies with other international organisations. There is scope for yet further collaboration and partnership with practitioners in the field. I would therefore like to lend my expertise and knowledge in destination marketing to share the unique insight I have into Europe’s tourism industry as a member of the Board of IFITT. I am able to act in an independent capacity to better align IFITT with practitioners who can benefit from the value of the academically led intelligence and knowledge exchange that IFITT provides to its members.
For those working in the industry, the value of such a network cannot be underestimated. My contribution as a member of the Board would be to ensure that IFITT membership provides year-round access to an exclusive network of tourism academics and professionals whilst also providing a valuable resource for tourism research and intelligence.

Key Areas of Contribution
· Expansion of the IFITT Network
· Increasing membership value
· Industry participation
· Knowledge exchange between academia and industry

 

 

Wolfram Hoepken Professor für Wirtschaftsinformatik und E-Business, Hochschule Ravensburg-Weingarten, Germany

Wolfram Höpken is professor for Business Informatics and eBusiness at the University of Applied Sciences Ravensburg-Weingarten. He is director of the E-Commerce Competence Centre Swabia (KECoS) and scientific advisor at the European Tourism Research Institute of Mid-Sweden University. Prior to this position he has been director of the eTourism Competence Center Austria (ECCA). His main fields of interest are intelligent trip planning and recommendation systems, semantic web & interoperability, mobile services and business intelligence and data mining. He has funded the IFITT RMSIG, a special interest group within IFITT (International Federation for IT and Travel & Tourism) for elaborating a reference model for electronic tourism markets. He has been involved in several EU-funded projects in the area of semantic web and seamless data interchange in tourism (Harmonise, Harmo-TEN, Euromuse). Wolfram Höpken is vice president and treasurer of IFITT as well as president of HarmoNet (network for harmonising the data exchange within the tourism domain). He has been research track chair of the ENTER conference 2009 and has chaired the CEN/ISSS workshop eTOUR dealing with harmonization in the field of tourism.

Motivation & Contribution:

 Based on a strong research and industry background, I would like to strengthen the IFITT USP of bridging between research and industry. Key elements of this strategy are the IFITT innovation fund, already envisaged by the IFITT board in the last period of office, IFITT workshops for applied research and an IFITT case study database (both in close cooperation with JITT). IFITT workshops will be based on an organizational and financial framework guiding and supporting a local organization hosting the workshop and will further spread the IFITT brand. The IFITT case study database will collect eTourism case studies and make them available to IFITT members and/or the eTourism community. IFITT case studies will be based on JITT case studies and ENTER case studies and will play a vital role in knowledge exchange between research, education and industry by externalizing tacit knowledge.Based on a long experience with IFITT matters I can add continuity to IFITT activities and especially take responsibility of IFITT financial matters. IFITT’s financial reporting has been currently restructured in order to make it more transparent. This process will be continued in the next period of office.

 

 

Berendien Lubbe - Professor at University of Pretoria Johannesburg Area, South Africa

Berendien Lubbe is a Full Professor in the Department of Tourism Management at the University of Pretoria. She specialises in tourism distribution and air transport in tourism.  She was involved in the travel industry as owner of her own travel agency for a number of years before joining the academic world.  She holds a BCom Transport Economics degree, an Honours, Masters and Doctorate in Communication Management.  She researches the airline and travel industries and has a particular interest in developing the field of business and corporate travel. Her research has been presented at international academic conferences and has been published in internationally accredited scientific journals. She has also published a number of books, amongst them “Tourism Distribution: the role of the travel intermediary”. She is also co-author and editor of “Tourism Management in Southern Africa” and “Tourism Entrepreneurs” published in 2006. She has also contributed to a number of international books. In 2006 she was a recipient of the prestigious Laureatus Award for “Innovation in Learning Facilitation” awarded by the University of Pretoria.  She is regularly asked to lecture at other universities in South Africa and overseas in countries such as the Netherlands and Finland on the topics of tourism distribution and trends in business and corporate travel. She is a consultant to a number of large organisations in South Africa on the topic of distribution and regularly does presentations at industry-related conferences and seminars.
 
Motivation & Contribution:
 
I have been a member of IFITT for approximately 8 years and have attended most of the Conferences during this period.  I have become well-acquainted with the ethos and professionalism of this organisation and believe that it makes a valuable contribution to academia and industry in a dynamic and challenging field.  IFITT has been a strong source of information and encouragement for me to establish Tourism Distribution and the use of ICTS in Tourism in South Africa as an academic discipline. This has led to the University of Pretoria being recognised as a leader in this field, not only delivering a number of Masters and Doctorates over the last few years, but becoming a source of intelligence for industry. I believe that, having derived so much benefit from IFITT I can serve the organisation well by contributing my perspectives on how IFITT can increase its footprint in the region of Southern Africa. I believe that my knowledge of the region and the key players in the field as well as my understanding of the vision of IFITT can facilitate joint ventures (both industry and academic) which will benefit the organisation.
 

 


Tinkara Pavlovcic Kapitanovic, Head of e-Business and Strategic Project, Slovenian Tourism Board, Slovenia

Tinkara is a  Head of e-Business and Strategic Projects at the Slovenian Tourist Board (STB), the major national tourist organisation in Slovenia, with over 12 years experience in tourism and online marketing. She is responsible for planning, development and implementation of the Slovenian DMS,  and selected strategic developments. In addition, she acts as a board member for the strategic planning and e-business development of the Slovenian Tourism on  a national level. In the past Tinkara has  also been accountable for Development and Research operations at the STB. Tinkara has extensive hands-on experience in online marketing developments. She planned, coordinated and implemented the Slovenian online presence from the first modern Slovenian tourism portal www.slovenia.info to current DMS, including online marketing (strategy) and sofisticated supervisory and training system for the overall partners' & servise providers' network. She has also been involved in the strategic preparations and implementation of the Slovenian central booking system and just recently in  new design and content restructure of www.slovenia.info with related subportals and applications. Prior to joining the STB TInkara has been working for Cap Gemini Ernst & Young Consulting and Schering AG (Switzerland). Tinkara  studied economics at the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Economics and Universi­­ty of St.Gallen, Switzerland. She is also a board member of IOETI, the International Organisation for the Electronic Tourism Industry. She acquired her Masters in Tourism Marketing and Management as best student and with distinction at Bournemouth University, UK in 2004.

Motivation and Contribution: 

My determination to contribute to  the IFITT and its  services to  grow and improve in 2011 drives me to stand for the IFITT board election. Coming from strong practical IT & tourism online marketing background  on one hand and dealing with the research activites in the past on the other, makes me believe that empowered and perhaps somehow different approach to certain IFITT activities could bring the IFITT in general and the ENTER conference in particular to the level it once had. I have been actively following the development of the IFITT and ENTER as one of the IFITT's most visible services for several years and I would like to implement some of my ideas in the areas of marketing and membership benefits in order to add to the accomplishment and the upgrade  of the IFITT future goals as stated in the IFITT's newsletter. 

Key areas of contribution: Marketing  and Membership benefits (also related to the new content for members on the IFITT website)

 

 

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