IFITT President's update January 2012
Happy New year and Welcome to ENTER2012 Helsingborg Sweden www.enter2012.org
We are very excited with all the developments happening and look forward to welcome you to Sweden
IFITT AGM AND ELECTIONS
- IFITT AGM will be on Wednesday 25th January 2012 in Campus Helsingborg of Lund University, Campus Helsingborg, Universitetsplatsen 2, SE-251 08 Helsingborg, Sweden MAP Room U202 [AGM only for those who are members by that time. [If you are not a member yet register today on http://www.ifitt.org/home/registerNewUser]
VOTE FOR THE BEST JOURNAL PAPER
- Please Vote for the best journal paper http://www.ifitt.org/home/view/IFITT-Prizes - Prizes will be announced at Gala Dinner
ENTER2012 CONFERENCE
- Our programme is great : View and Download the detailed ENTER012 Provisional Programme
- Maps and locations are marked here http://www.ifitt.org/congresses/website/enter2012/Conference_Location
- Celebrate Chinese New Year at the ENTER Reception on Wednesday 25th January
Look forward to welcome you all to Helsingborg, Sweden !
Prof Dimitrios Buhalis
IFITT President
IFITT President's update November 2011
IFITT President's update November 2011
Time flies and I fly non stop! Had the opportunity to meet many of you in my trips and also to promite IFITT across several continents in the last 6 months. Gradually our message, mission, vision is being heard and a number of partnerships with important organisations is formulated
IFITT is going places
In the last few months I have been travelling and promoting IFITT non stop. Participated at the World Tourism Organisation General Assembly in Korea and I also had the opportunity to promote IFITT and ENTER in the UK, Greece, Austria, Serbia, Spain, Portugal and South Africa; all this in the last month.
Public Relationships team
We now have a PR function and trying to develop a virtual press office with volunteers from Bournemouth University PR students and communication students from Lugano University. They are helping us to establish this function in both traditional and new media. Thanks go to Lorenzo for bringing his students along and Tinkara and Nicolas Gregory for coordinating.
AWARDS
We are finalising the IFITT Awards that we offer at ENTER. Please nominate your candidate asap
Outstanding Industry Contribution Award This is an award given at the ENTER 2012 conference to a company/organisation who has made a significant contribution to the growth and success of technology adoption, integration, or use in the tourism industry. Organisations have to be nominated by an IFITT member. The IFITT Board will select the winning organization. The award involves an award trophy, a certificate, a ticket to the ENTER 2012 conference gala dinner, an acknowledgement on the IFITT and ENTER websites, and corporate IFITT membership for one year. To nominate an organisation for this award you have to be an active IFITT member. Please send a brief description of the organization, their contributions to IT and tourism, and contact details to Ulrike Gretzel at ugretzel@uow.edu.au by November 30, 2011.
Journal Paper of the Year Award For the first time at ENTER 2012 IFITT will present an award to the most innovative and scientifically rigorous information technology and tourism-related paper published in an academic journal during the year 2011. The winning paper will receive one award trophy and certificates for all authors. Nomination process: Only IFITT members can nominate papers. One nomination only per member. Self-nominations are allowed. A complete citation for the paper in APA style together with a pdf file of the article should be sent by January 1, 2012 to Ulrike Gretzel at ugretzel@uow.edu.au. To qualify, the paper needs to have a tourism and technology focus and must have been published between January 1, 2011 and December 31, 2011 (online pre-publication is ok). Selection process: The IFITT awards committee will select the Top 25 papers. An open voting process will then be conducted on the IFITT Website January 5-15 to identify the winning paper out of these Top 25 papers.
ELECTIONS TO THE BOARD IFITT invites nominations for new board members 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.
Please send your application directly to 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 wolfram@hoepken.org.
INTERNATIONAL EVENTS: Lots of activities are planned for the next few months
Lots of activities are taking place
IFITT Greece was launched in a great event in Athens Hilton that attracted about 150 people and was a sell out raising lots of interest from many people.
IFITT@ World Travel Market 2011 http://www.wtmlondon.com/ WORKSHOP: Using Technology and Social Networking for Real Time Services Monday 7th November 2011 Platinum Suite 1 from 10.00 - 12.00 Register for the IFITT Event: http://ifitt.eventbrite.com/
IFITTitaly @BTO – Keep an eye for the IFITT sessions at BTO 1st December 2011
http://www.buytourismonline.com/il-programma-day-one-1-dicembre-2011/
Great room # 4 Focus From tip to persuasion Ifitt Chapter Italy 15:00 to 16:20 How innovation helps the tourist destination to converse with and learn from it, by IFITTItaly
Speakers: Adriano Venturini , eCTRL Trent and Francesco Ricci , University of Bolzano provide personalized content in a mobile environment, Oliviero Stock , IRST Trento, FBK- digital art of persuasion: how to effectively promote a destination through intelligent interfaces, Chiara Francalanci , Digital Reputation Lab - Politecnico di Milano What customers say about us? Analyze and manage the online reputation of a destination Track: Governance and Territorial Marketing
Great room # 4 FocusStrategies Network IFITTItaly 16:30 to 17:30 Network strategies in the hospitality industry and services, by Ifitt Chapter Italy Moderated by Giacomo del Chiappa, University of Sassari, which will also be discussing "Social Media and hotel accommodation: influence on customer behavior and business impact"
IFITT Switzerland Friday 2nd December 2011
The annual IFITT Switzerland Chapter Meeting Is Coming Up: eTourism 2011: more Sales, more Apps, more Social?
from 9:30am onwards Bâtiment Bellevue – HES-SO Valais – Sierre (Switzerland).
To see the programme and further information, please visit: http://tpm.hevs.ch/
ENTER2012 Helsingborg Sweden 24TH -27TH JANUARY 2012
IFITT@Eyefortravel: Technology Enabled Tourism Experience Economy
Thursday, April 19, 2012 from 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM Business Design Centre London, UK.
ENTER2013 We are getting to the final negotiations with our preferred destination for 2013 to be announced by ENTER2012
ENTER2014 – Innsbruck is waiting for us to celebrate our 21st Birthday and what celebration that will be.
NEW CHAPTERS hit the ground running!
We are pleased with the development of the Italian Chapter that aims at building and developing a local community of academics and practitioners interested in eTourism in order to create and disseminate knowledge, promote learning from good practices and build and maintain relationships with public and private institutions active in the field of ICTs and travel & tourism. The Chapter is directed by a President and a board composed of 3 to 5 members elected by the Chapter members assembly. For the initial period, until the first general assembly, president and members of the board are: Rodolfo Baggio, Bocconi University, President, Luisa Mich, University of Trento, Roberta Milano, BTO Educational, Roberto Peretta, University of Bergamo. In this setup period the chapter will develop a website which will serve as platform for sharing documents and discussing eTourism issues of interest for the Italian community. A conference will be held in November/December 2011 (during the BTO – Buy Tourism Online event in Florence); Chaired by: Valeria Minghetti and Giacomo Del Chiappa. On this occasion the first general assembly is called.
The IFITT chapter in Greece was also established with a great inaugural event on 25th September 2011 http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=oa.10150300714599022&type=1 that raised lots of interest and fantastic press coverage. The chapter currently has twenty members and the board following an election process consists of: Dimitrios Serifis - Nelios.com (Chairman), Spyros Georgiou - Airotel (Vice President), Stavros Kefalas - Tourix (General Secretary), Manolis Psarros - AbouTourism, Konstantinos Aivalis - TEI of Crete, Anastasia Stratigea - NTUA, Alexis Bizanidis - Gats Group of Companies.
Time is flying and lots of great things are happening with IFITT. There is a plethora of activities, meetings and agendas that are emerging globally and IFITT is becoming more and more relevant and is reaching for new members. Engage in those events or suggest your own. Look forward to work with you soon to take eTourism forward.
Dimitrios Buhalis
IFITT President
1st November 2011
IFITT President's update September 2011
Summer has gone really fast for me with a number of life events that forced me to concentrate more on personal and family matters. In the meanwhile I am please to report that IFITT has been flying and lots of activities have taken place. The CONTEXT BASED SERVICES IN TOURISM WORKSHOP@ Bournemouth University took place on the Thursday 7th July and Friday 8th July and discussed Context Based Services as a key emerging area and a great business opportunity and challenge. I am grateful to Zornitza Yovcheva from my team at Bournemouth as well as Carlos Lamsfus and Aurkene Alzua from CICtourGUNE for delivering a great workshop
IFITT@ World Travel Market 2011 http://www.wtmlondon.com/ WORKSHOP: Using Technology and Social Networking for Real Time Services Monday 7th November 2011 Platinum Suite 1 from 10.00 - 12.00 Register for the IFITT Event: http://ifitt.eventbrite.com/
IFITT is hosting a workshop at the WTM to discuss Technology and Social Media enabled Real-time Service Management in Hospitality and Tourism. There are major developments on this area which boosted by Context Based Services are expected to have major impacts in customer service and also in tourism marketing. The event will be moderated by Professor Dimitrios Buhalis, IFITT President and Bournemouth University and Professor Andrew Frew, Queen Margaret University
Confirmed Speakers include:
Tinkara Pavlovčič Kapitanovič, Head of e-Business and Strategic Projects, Slovenian Tourist Board
Nate Bucholz, Industry Manager, Google
Joanna Matloka, Account Manager, 77Agency
Nicolas Gregori, John Kent Institute in Tourism - Bournemouth University
Zornitza Yovcheva, John Kent Institute in Tourism - Bournemouth University
ENTER2012 is well under preparation and the team is doing a great job securing speakers and building the biggest programme ever
The ENTER2012 PhD workshop call for papers has recently gone online and PhD students are welcome to join us
We have also announced the IFITT AWARDS 2012 – and the Call For Nominations is on the web site. Please engage with this process.
NEW CHAPTERS hit the ground running!
We are pleased with the development of the Italian Chapter that aims at building and developing a local community of academics and practitioners interested in eTourism in order to create and disseminate knowledge, promote learning from good practices and build and maintain relationships with public and private institutions active in the field of ICTs and travel & tourism. The Chapter is directed by a President and a board composed of 3 to 5 members elected by the Chapter members assembly. For the initial period, until the first general assembly, president and members of the board are: Rodolfo Baggio, Bocconi University, President, Luisa Mich, University of Trento, Roberta Milano, BTO Educational, Roberto Peretta, University of Bergamo. In this setup period the chapter will develop a website which will serve as platform for sharing documents and discussing eTourism issues of interest for the Italian community. A conference will be held in November/December 2011 (during the BTO – Buy Tourism Online event in Florence); Chaired by: Valeria Minghetti and Giacomo Del Chiappa. On this occasion the first general assembly is called.
The IFITT chapter in Greece was also established. The chapter currently has twenty members and the board following an election process consists of: Dimitrios Serifis - Nelios.com (Chairman), Spyros Georgiou - Airotel (Vice President), Stavros Kefalas - Tourix (General Secretary), Manolis Psarros - AbouTourism, Konstantinos Aivalis - TEI of Crete, Anastasia Stratigea - NTUA, Alexis Bizanidis - Gats Group of Companies. The aim of the chapter is initially to extend the membership base and then to begin a series of measures to promote interaction between institutions related to the tourism industry. The first event of IFITT Greece event is on 25th September 2011 as part of a multi conference organized by the Greek-German chamber of commerce, more info you could find here http://www.capitalvision.gr/e/home.asp Speakers will include:
Costis Aivalis: Professor & Researcher on Technological Institute of Crete New web analytics software that predicts visitor behaviour in a website
Phillip Brinkmann: CEO of Travelplannet24.com The importance of technology for OTAs
Rea Vervita: Avis Greece Case Study "the social media strategy of Avis"
Dimitrios Buhalis: IFITT President Global eTourism developments
Now available online the Proceedings of ENTER2011
Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2011:
http://www.springer.com/business+%26+management/business+information+systems/book/978-3-7091-0502-3
Time is flying and lots of great things are happening with IFITT. There is a plethora of activities, meetings and agendas that are emerging globally and IFITT is becoming more and more relevant and is reaching for new members. Engage in those events or suggest your own. Look forward to work with you soon to take eTourism forward.
Professor Dimitrios Buhalis
IFITT President
IFITT President's update June 2011
Time is flying and lots of great things are happening with IFITT. There is a plethora of activities, meetings and agendas that are emerging globally and IFITT is becoming more and more relevant and is reaching for new members. Engage in those events or suggest your own. Look forward to work with you soon to take eTourism forward.
INTERNATIONAL EVENTS:
I am particularly proud of the IFITT hosted at the EyeForTravel Distribution Sum-mit in London on 10th May 2011 on Technology and social media enabled ser-vice management in hospitality and tourism. IFITT administrator and Bourne-mouth University PhD student organised the meeting and I Chaired it. Speakers were from leading travel and tourism organisations KLM, VisitBritain, Google, TripAdvisor, British Airways, Tnooz.com, BrandKarma, and academia John Kent Institute in Tourism – Bournemouth University. The meeting discussed how re-cent developments in real-time technologies, social media, context based ser-vices and augmented reality impact customer service management and mar-keting in the tourism industry. See report on p.4 of the IFITT newsletter.
The International Federation of Information Technology for Travel and Tourism IFITT and Journal of Information Technology for Travel and Tourism JITT
CONTEXT BASED SERVICES IN TOURISM WORKSHOP@ Bournemouth University will take place Thursday 7th July and Friday 8th July - Saturday 9th Social Programme.
Context Based Services is emerging as a key research area and a great business opportunity and challenge. This is particularly the case in Tourism where location and context based services will be used for serving the travellers of the future. The aim of this workshop is to bring together industry leaders with scholars and researchers with an interest in the interaction between Context Based Services, Technology and Tourism. The workshop is designed to facilitate the sharing of ideas on all aspects of the topic and to encourage/facilitate innovative and in-depth analysis with a view to downstream practical applications and outcomes. Participants may engage with the workshop in a variety of ways with or without presentation. Register and participate http://www.ifitt.org/home/view/context-based-services and http://ifittcbs.eventbrite.com/.
In Italy Rodolfo has represented IFITT at SITE Emea Forum (Florence, March 19th 2011) http://www.siteglobal.com/Events/EMEAForum.aspx. Whilst we are pre-paring for a major presence at 1st International Conference on Tourism Manage-ment (Rimini, 15-16 Sep. 2011) http://www.secs.unibo.it/SECS/NewsAndEvents/Events/2011/09/1st_International_Conference_on_Tourism_Management_and_ Tourism_related_Issues.htm and In November we will run an IFITTitaly Lab - November Florence in BTO (Buy Tourism Online)
http://www.buytourismonline.com/
IFITT President's update March 2011
I am very energised by my trip to Helsingborg, Sweden where I worked with Malin and the ENTER2012 team to arrange the event and organise the social aspect. Everyday our eTourism community is getting stronger and the impact of our activities is becoming more evident. I am so glad to meet so many of you in events and activities around the world.
BOARD AND AGENDA Following the IFITT AGM at ENTER2011 we have a revised constitution and a new Board http://www.ifitt.org/home/view/ifitt-board that is already taking things forward. The addition of Tinkara, Nicolas and Berendien will enable us to speak to new communities and expand further. As we said before our strategic objectives for 2011 will concentrate on :
· Expand IFITTs footprint globally
· Expand on membership
· Bring new benefits to members
· Facilitate more networking to the eTourism community
· Engage in conversation with partners and other international organisations
ENTER2012: eTourism Present and Future Services and Applications - Helsingborg Sweden 24th to 27th of January 2012. www.enter2012.org We were very privileged to accept the Campus Helsingborg, Lund University proposal for ENTER2012 and for the first time ever we announced the location and the entire ENTER team at the conclusion of ENTER2011. Having just visited Helsingborg I am utterly energised by the enthusiasm of the team and the efficiency of everybody. A quick flight to Copenhagen, Denmark and a lovely train ride gets you to Helsingborg in Sweden, a delightful little town with very warm hospitality. See photos, the outline programme and the social programme on www.enter2012.org
ENGAGE
Submit a research paper Call For Papers http://www.ifitt.org/congresses/website/enter2012/cfp
Suggest an Industry Case Study and Presentation http://www.ifitt.org/congresses/website/enter2012/enter-industry
Suggest a Destination Case Study and Presentation http://www.ifitt.org/congresses/website/enter2012/enter-destination
Sponsor ENTER2012 – Many opportunities available
ENTER2013 We also starting the process to select the ENTER2013 location and organiser. We recognise that organisation circle. We will invite the partners that expressed interest for ENTER2012 to consider 2013 Please let us know if you are interested in hosting ENTER2013 and start putting a bid together. See the requirements on http://www.ifitt.org/home/view/ENTERrequirements The deadline for proposals is the 15th June 2011 and we will aim to select a destination in the early part of autumn.
INTERNATIONAL EVENTS: Through events we will increase IFITT’s footprint and we start collaborating with colleagues and organisations to support events and conferences around the world where IFITT can make a contribution. I am also presenting IFITT in all the conferences I am invited around the world. If you feel that IFITT should be presented in another conference please let me know. We are also arranging for a range of additional events to bring the community together
IFITT@EYEFORTRAVEL EUROPEAN TRAVEL SUMMIT London Technology enabled Real-Time Service Management http://www.eyefortravel.com/tds 10th May 2011 Business Design Centre, London 09:30-12:00
IFITT/JITT Workshop CONTEXT BASED SERVICES IN TOURISM WORKSHOP @ Bournemouth University Thursday 7th July and Friday 8th July - Saturday 9th Social Programme http://www.ifitt.org/home/view/context-based-services and http://ifittcbs.eventbrite.com Deadline for papers 20th May
MEMBERSHIP: With our systems in place we are now ready to have a major push and drive membership. We have clarified the Corporate and Discounted Corporate prices and benefits too. One of the major benefits is our ability to reinforce our corporate members http://www.ifitt.org/home/view/corporate-members Please renew your membership as your current membership if you have not done so far and benefit from the exclusive benefits of accessing the ENTER research paper proceedings electronically, accessing the presentations of ENTER and many others. Please use our online system and report back if you experience any difficulties. NEW IDEAS we are very open to new ideas and suggestions for IFITT activities. Things that you feel that IFITT should be doing. Please send me an email with initiatives that you would like IFITT to take in the future. Yours Truly Dimitrios Buhalis
IFITT President March 2011
IFITT President's update and President’s report to the AGM January 2011
Happy new year !
· Expand IFITTs footprint globally
OBJECTIVES FOR 2011
· Expand on membership
· Bring new benefits to members
· Facilitate more networking to the eTourism community
· Engage in conversation with partners and other international organisationsPROGRESS SO FAR
Additionally, we invite nominations for new board members (for three vacant posi-tions in the IFITT board). Nominees should provide the following info (via email to ifitt@ifitt.org) by the 21st of January 2011: - CV (20 lines maximum) - motivation for standing for an IFITT board position - key areas of contribution - each nomination has to be supported by two IFITT members (via email to ifitt@ifitt.org)
Dimitrios Buhalis
IFITT President January 2011
IFITT President's update November 2010
Time flies when you are having fun – in my case it flies anyway!!! Just back from Korea, Austria and on my way to Italy for BTO. Hope to see you somewhere soon! We have been busy in IFITT taking the organisation forward. Here are some of the latest news:
• ADMINISTRATION: I am very grateful for the support I have received from our Administrator Margret Cordesmeyer and I am sure you would like to join in congratulating her for getting her MSc with Distinction and also getting the ATHE prize. As Margret has moved to Germany we decided to bring into team Nicolas Gregori who recently join me at Bournemouth University as on of the JKIT PhD students. Nicola is going to be our Deputy Administrator and he will work closely with Margret in supporting IFITT. You will meet Nicola in ENTER2011.
• WEB SITE: Our web site www.ifitt.org is now ready thanks to a sponsorship from www.nelios.com and the hard work of Margret and several other colleagues. The web site will enable you to renew your membership online with a credit card and we feel that IFITT will be able to be much more efficient in dealing with Membership renewals
• MEMBERSHIP: We made an early decision to extend all Membership to 31 January 2011. Now that online system is up and running we wish to invite you to extend your membership and to take advantage of the discount offered for the ENTER conference. Please use our online system and report back if you experience any difficulties.
• CONSTITUTION: Work is progressing in renewing our constitution and we should be able to present it at the ENTER conference. Ulrike Gretzel is heading this activity and feel free to email Ulrike any suggestions that you have
• MARKETING: Jamie Murphy is heading the development of our Marketing Strategy. It was recently decided that we will use the tag line “the eTourism community” in our communications. We are now building the media plan for spreading our message across. Suggestions of media that we should be used are more than welcome.
• PARNTERSHIPS: We have already established partnerships with OTA, TTI, TTRA offering benefits and discounts to our members and reciprocate in the publicity of our events and newsletters. Commercial partnerships with EyeForTravel and OctopusTravel also give us preferential rates to our members. We aim to expand this and we would welcome your feedback and input
• INTERNATIONAL EVENTS We are conscious that IFITT needs to increase its footprint and we start collaborating with colleagues and organisations to support events and conferences around the world where IFITT can make a contribution. We are therefore supporting the OTA conference in London, JITT workshop in Edinburgh, the IOETI conference in Luxor and all the EyeForTravel events. I am also presenting IFITT in all the conferences I am invited around the world.
• ENTER2011 – just back from Innsbruck where I had the opportunity to finalise the details of ENTER with Christopher and George at the Congress Centre and to fix the ever important social programme. The conference programme is almost ready and I would like to thank Lorenzo, Rob, Robert and Rodolfo and their teams are already announcing keynote speakers. We received almost 100 papers for evaluation and about 70 of those will be presented at ENTER as research papers or research notes. This is the largest number of papers we ever had and I am very proud of the growth of the community. Register before the 15th of November for ENTER2011 to get the early discount!!! The PhD workshop is progressing well and I am grateful to MCI in Innsbruck for their sponsorship and support. This year the ENTER conference committee is glad to announce a great line of keynote speakers for the conference. These include:
• Marko Balabanovic – Head of Innovation at lastminute.com.
• Don Birch – Vice President Europe of Brand Karma,
• Barbara Muckermann – Head of Corporate Marketing at MSC Cruises,
• Martin Verdon-Roe - Sales Director, Europe at TripAdvisor,
• Jon Munro and Bethan Richards - Digital Marketing Managers at Visit Wales,
• Jason Ryan – Head of Strategy & Planning at iCrossing UK,
• Tom Hall - Head of Communications at Lonely Planet
• ENTER2012 we start receiving proposals for ENTER2012 and we would welcome some more to find the best place to take ENTER in 2012. Please let us know if you are interested in hosting ENTER2012 and start putting a bid together.
• NEW IDEAS we are very open to new ideas and suggestions for IFITT activities – Please send me an email with initiatives that you would like IFITT to take in the future.
Yours Truly
Dimitrios Buhalis
IFITT President
IFITT President's update September 2010
We have been busy in IFITT taking the organisation forward. Here are some of the latest news:
• WEB SITE: We launched the Beta version of our web site www.ifitt.org thanks to a sponsorship from www.nelios.com and we are proud of the result so far. We are working on integrating the membership management modules, the online payments and the networking between members and those elements should be coming online in the September. We would welcome feedback and suggestions on what you would like to see on the web site. We also would like to collect photos from past ENTERs and other documents. Please send them to us.
• BENEFITS: We are developing a number of benefits for the IFITT members. So far these include: 10% on accommodation booking at OctopusTravel.com, a preferential rate at the TTI Conference in London as well as a great 60% in EyeforTravel conferences for academic members. If you know of organisations that can offer special offers and prices to IFITT members please let me, Aurkene or Andy know.
• PARTNERSHIPS: We are building our partnership basis with various organisations to benefit from mutual benefits. TTI is a long standing partner that we are looking forward to expand. The EyeForTravel colleagues are also very proactive in working together with us. We are open to several organisations that we can provide mutual benefits to our members and we are happy to reciprocate
• INTERNATIONAL EVENTS We are conscious that IFITT needs to increase its footprint and we start collaborating with colleagues and organisations to support events and conferences around the world where IFITT can make a contribution. We are therefore supporting the JITT workshop in Edinburgh, the IOETI conference in Luxor and all the EyeForTravel events
• ENTER2011 http://www.enter2011.org is progressing fast and Lorenzo, Rob, Robert and Rodolfo and their teams are already announcing keynote speakers. Deadline for the Call for papers is approaching soon – please submit your papers. Also if interested in organising a session or if you want to suggest a topic please contact the ENTER team as soon as possible. We are always keen to receive new ideas and to engage with IFITT member to address the issues that you are concerned about.
• ENTER2012 we start receiving proposals for ENTER2012 and we would welcome some more to find the best place to take ENTER in 2012. Please let us know if you are interested in hosting ENTER2012 and start putting a bid together.
• EXTENDED MEMBERSHIP UP TO ENTER2011: With so many things open during the reconstruction of the web site we decided to extend all subscription until 31st January 2011. We will try to normalise subscription years from one ENTER to another.
• NEW IDEAS we are very open to new ideas and suggestions for IFITT activities – Please send me an email with initiatives that you would like IFITT to take in the future.
Yours Truly
Dimitrios Buhalis
IFITT President
IFITT President's update July 2010
Time flies when you are having fun and the new IFITT Boa
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