Dear colleagues,
as we start my second year as IFITT President I still feel the great privilege, honour, responsibility and pleasure to lead the organisation and I am grateful to the support I have received from the membership as well as the IFITT Board. Being the fourth President after Hannes Werthner, Josef Margreiter and Andrew Frew is a great privilege and responsibility. I look forward to work with every single member and stakeholder to take IFITT higher and also to make a great contribution to the global eTourism community.
In the last year we had to undertake a whole range of initiatives to strengthen the organisation and to develop its capacity to grow. In particular we focused on developing a fully functional web site that will become the hub of all our activities. We were privileged to work with Nelios.com who sponsored our site and we are still developing the content to serve our community. We also strengthened our administration with the capacity to pay online for membership and to make most of the transactions on the site. Margret Cordesmeyer our IFITT Administrator played an invaluable role on this task and I really want to thank her.We also concentrated in developing partnerships with other like minded organisations to extend the membership benefits. We now have partnerships with TTI, Open Alliance, PATA, ETOA, IOETI, and TTRA. We also have privileged offers for members with OctopusTravel, Nelios.com and EyeforTravel events. We also concentrated on making ENTER the best ICT and Tourism conference in the world – both in terms of content and social networking. We had a great experience back home in Innsbruck and we were able to announce the that ENTER2012 will take place in Sweden as well as the entire ENTER team at the closing of ENTER2011.
IFITT has never been in a stronger position, mainly due to its very positive financial position, the excellent global reputation we enjoy and the increase of importance of technology for the world of tourism and travel. We are not complacent; there are a lot of challenges ahead and we need to work hard to ensure that IFITT goes further and that each member gains a range of benefits to become an ambassador for the Federation and a hub of the eTourism community. With this in mind I am particularly pleased to present to you the new IFITT Board and each person responsibilities. We are grateful for the contribution of Aurkene Alzua Sorzabal and Jamie Murphy who have stepped down and we welcome back Wolfram Höpken as well as Nicholas Hall, Tinkara Pavlovčič Kapitanovič, and Berendien Lubbe. We also welcome Nicolas Gregori and Soultana Symeonidou as the IFITT Administrators with Membership and Web site responsibilities respectively.
We have decided that every person on the board will lead on one area and will support a second area. This will ensure that the board will be flexible and subgroups will work efficiently together to resolve issues and progress effectively.
The IFITT Board is therefore:
* Dimitrios Buhalis: President and Strategy/ International Liaison (1) / Marketing (2)
* Wolfram Höpken: Vice President / Treasurer
* Nicholas Hall: / Industry and Commercial (2)
* Rodolfo Baggio: Industry and Commercial (1) / Treasurer (2)
* Lorenzo Cantoni: Communication and Website / Archive (1)
* Andrew J. Frew: Membership and Benefit / Product Development /
* Ulrike Gretzel: Special Projects / Education Director (1)
* Rob Law: Research/ ENTER research chair
* Tinkara Pavlovčič Kapitanovič,: Marketing Director (1) / Membership (2)
* Paul Barron: Chapters
* Berendien Lubbe: Chapters / Education Director
The original targets as per my election pledge remain key for the development of IFITT:
* A global forum for tourism and technology on a global basis that brings together members
* that create and disseminate innovative knowledge in ITT
* An inclusive organisation where each member is equally informed about the key
* developments and opportunities available
* A depository of literature and contemporary developments on ITT
* Collaboration with Tourism and Technology Organisations globally
* Respect as an one stop shop where expertise can be found
* Strengthening ENTER to become THE tourism and technology event in the world
* Organising regional events on specialised issues
* Strengthening of regional chapters to support our global recruitment
* Use Web 2.0 and other off the self technologies for sharing resources, discussions and
* More collaboration with the Journals that are relevant to our areas
* Support for new/young researchers to follow Tourism and technology
* Empower PhD students in these areas
* Competitions to support excellence in Tourism and Technology
* Build consensus effectively through membership and deliver results
* Establish trust between members and co-destiny
* Seek inspirations and turn ideas into reality efficiently
* Leading from the heart with a passion for IFITT
In the period 2011 – 2012 we will concentrate in building the membership and to enhance membership benefits. We will also concentrate on expanding our chapters so we can support the eTourism communities locally as well as our global partners.
Please feel free to engage in conversation with me or any Board members to suggest things and to offer your services. I believe strongly that YOUR Federation can only go forward with your involvement and support.
Dimitrios Buhalis
IFITT President
February 2011
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