Matteucci's blog

On December 9th, MODUL University Vienna hosted the closing event of the EC co-funded project Landscape of the Year – European Network for Competitive and Sustainable Tourism.

On the occasion of the Youth & Student Travel Conference held in Barcelona on September 20-23 2011, the UNWTO released the second of a series of reports dedicated to the youth travel market. The reports are produced in collaboration with the World Youth Student and Educational Travel Confederation (WYSETC) and include commentaries from specialists, UNWTO Affiliate Members, and other selected organizations on the importance of Youth Travel for economic development, global development, and young travelers themselves.

MU faculty member Xavier Matteucci has just returned from Maribor, Slovenia where he participated in the 4th Advances in Tourism Marketing Conference (ATMC) from September 6th to September 8th.

On 27 November 2009, Ben Sherman, member of the Oglala Lakota Indian Nation and a national leader in the development of American Indian tourism efforts in the United States gave a guest presentation on “Universal Tourism Values from a Native Perspective” at MODUL University within the guest lecture series Latest Trends and Innovations in Tourism.

In November 2009, the students who participated in the “Health and Wellness Tourism” seminar visited the spa and thermal Hotel Linsberg Asia.

Linsberg Asia, which is located in the southern part of Lower Austria, is a four-star spa resort with Asian philosophy and traditions as its key theme. Students got insights into how the thermal hotel and spa is managed and operates. Mr. Matthias Engel, financial controller at the Linsberg Asia and lecturer at MU Vienna, gave a presentation on key facts and figures of spa and wellness hotels in general and about the Linsberg Asia in particular.

Stefan Gössling, Professor at the Department of Service Management at Lund University, Sweden, and research coordinator at the Western Norway Research Institute’s Research Centre for Sustainable Tourism gave a presentation on the 23rd of October 2009 at MODUL University entitled: “The Future of Tourism out of a Climate Mitigation Perspective: the Post-Kyoto Emissions Challenge".

The travel industry must transform itself in order to adapt to the wide spreading impact of climate change. According to Stefan Gössling, it is still early enough for the industry to respond to climate change.

MODUL University Vienna (MU) has recently become a new member of The International Ecotourism Society (TIES).

TIES promotes ecotourism, which is defined as "responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the well-being of local people,"

Welcome to the new issue of our newsletter. As usual, each of the four points of the issue introduces an aspect of the sustainability concept. The first point covers the upcoming conference to be held in Vienna on methods of food production, environment and health. The second point shows how the economic crisis is lived by ordinary Canadian citizens and finally, points three and four consist of tips and links to websites of interest. Any comments or suggestions can be e-mailed to Xavier Matteucci (newsletter.contact@modul.ac.at).

Dear all,
Welcome to the new issue of our newsletter. This issue introduces the new members of the Sustainability Committee (SC) at MU as well as the committee’s agenda for the forthcoming months. This issue also covers the three following topics: First Movie Night within the SC film series, Travelers’ Philanthropy tips towards responsible travel and the Slow Food movement.

Dear all,
Welcome to the new issue of our newsletter. This issue covers a variety of areas from a report on MU students’ preferences about potential Master degrees in tourism and hospitality, to 9 predictions in the area of sustainable travel. Any comments or suggestions can be e-mailed to Xavier Matteucci (newsletter.contact@modul.ac.at). Your contribution is valuable. Thanks !

I. Does sustainability matter?