Save the date for the 10th ETC & ECM Joint TourMIS Users’ Workshop – 11&12 September 2014

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Save the date for next TourMIS Users’ Workshop on 11th-12th September 2014

9th ETC & ECM Joint TourMIS Users’ Workshop & International Seminar on Hospitality of Local Communities and Providers of Tourism Services – The Role of Dashboards, Tourism Observatories and Other Monitoring Tools

  • Date:  September 12-13, 2013
  • Location: MODUL University Vienna, Am Kahlenberg 1, A-1190 Vienna

Organized by the European Travel Commission, European Cities Marketing & MODUL University Vienna

MODUL University Vienna was pleased to host two major events on September 12th and 13th, 2013: the 9th ETC & ECM TourMIS Users’ Workshop (day 1) and the International Seminar on Hospitality of Local Communities and Providers of Tourism Services (day 2). 70 delegates from 25 countries attended this year’s events, the majority of whom represented city and national tourist organizations, as well as international tourism organizations, universities and companies from the hospitality and tourism industry. In addition to regular workshop attendees we happily welcome every year, there were quite a number of new faces in the audience, eager to learn about TourMIS (www.tourmis.info)!

The first day’s workshop provided an introduction and discussion of important TourMIS features, and focused primarily on the topic of benchmarking tourism destinations. The workshop was led by Dr. Karl Wöber, President of MODUL University Vienna and developer of TourMIS, and was further enriched by the contributions of Tünde Mester (Hungarian Tourism Plc.), Vincent Nijs (Toerisme Vlaanderen), Irem Önder (MODUL University Vienna), and Olivier Ponti (Amsterdam Marketing). As such, this workshop was a unique outlet to provide training on how to use TourMIS and for discussion on possible future steps in developing the system.

The International Seminar on Hospitality of Local Communities and Providers of Tourism Services on day 2 was organized by European Cities Marketing. The emergence of systems capable of tracking, collecting and analyzing huge amounts of data on travelers’ experiences and service quality can lead to a revolution how industry professionals manage their core capacities. As such, it is crucial for tourism organizations to better understand the benefits offered by these emerging technologies.

For this reason, 2013’s presentations and discussions focused on the nature of data related to service quality in tourism and discussed the role of dashboards, tourism observatories and other monitoring tools, and their value in supporting the tourism industry.

After the opening session with Professor Daniel Fesenmaier (Temple University, USA) who discussed the opportunities and limitations of big data sets, and Sean White (Office for National Statistics, UK) who presented the Virtual Tourism Observatory, a number of speakers (Iris Zehrer and Klaus Grabler (both from MANOVA Vienna), Aurkene Alzua-Sorzabal (CICtourGUNE, San Sebastian), Valeria Croce (European Travel Commission), Ulf Sonntag (N.I.T.), Alex Rayner (Pacific Asia Travel Association), Irem Önder (MODUL University Vienna), Vincent Nijs (Toerisme Vlaanderen), Frédéric Cornet (VISIT BRUSSELS), and Olivier Ponti (Amsterdam Marketing)) contributed with their own case studies and shared their expertise within this research area.

Both events were kindly sponsored by the Austrian National Tourist Office (ANTO) and the Vienna Tourist Board and we would like to thank them for their continuous support. For anyone who would like to know more about these events, a detailed program, speakers’ information handout and all presentations are available for download on our website: www.modul.ac.at/tourmis

Save the date for the next year’s workshop on 11th-12th September 2014, when we will celebrate our 10th anniversary!

Prof. Dr. Karl Wöber President
Contact: Ms Bozana Zekan
bozana.zekan[at]modul.ac.at
Researcher and Lecturer
MODUL University Vienna