A record number of participants for 7th TourMIS Users’ Workshop

Vienna’s MODUL University this year hosted two major events on September 15 and 16: the 7th TourMIS Users’ Workshop (day 1) and the International Seminar on New Media Analysis and Strategies for Tourism Marketing Organiations (day 2). Both workshop and seminar take place on an annual basis and are initiatives jointly organised by European Cities Marketing, European Travel Commission and MODUL University Vienna. This year’s events witnessed record numbers, with 103 delegates attending from 25 different countries. This confirmed the status of the TourMIS Workshop as a leading event for tourism researchers and policymakers. Most of the delegates represented city and national tourist organisations, as well as universities and companies from the hospitality and tourism industry.

First day’s workshop provided an overview of new features in TourMIS (www.tourmis.info), centering upon the topic of benchmarking tourism destinations. The workshop was led by Dr. Karl Wöber, President of MODUL University Vienna and prime architect and author of TourMIS. Other valuable insights came from the experienced TourMIS users: Kathrin Heintschel (Vienna Tourist Board), Vincent Nijs (Toerisme Vlaanderen), Tünde Mester (Hungarian National Tourist Office), and Irem Arsal (MODUL University Vienna). As such, this workshop was a unique outlet to meet the developer of TourMIS himself and to discuss further upcoming features together. The focus of the second day’s seminar turned to media monitoring, webmining and visualization, and then to mobile applications and user behavior. The speakers here were a mix of academics (Francesco Ricci, Arno Scharl, Astrid Dickinger, Florian Aubke, Clemens Költringer, and Irem Arsal) and practitioners (Manfred Hackl, Camille Benoist, Olivier Ponti, Olaf Nitz, and Paul Hennessy), enabling a rewarding sharing of experience and expertise to take place. A new feature this year was a wellness sessions ‘breathexperience’ held by a certified health-pedagogue and practitioner from Middendorf Breathwork, Mrs. Gabriele Rinner.

Both events were sponsored by Vienna Tourist Board and Austrian National Tourist Office. For anyone who would like to know more about these events, please go to www.modul.ac.at/tourmis for the programme, presentations, and picture gallery.