UNWTO World Tourism Barometer2008 will clearly go into the history books as a year of turbulence and contrasts. In the 12 months since UNWTO published its January 2008 edition of the World Tourism Barometer, including forecasts for the year ahead, the growth in international tourist arrivals has slowed drastically worldwide, under the influence of an extremely volatile and unfavourable global economy - due to factors such as the credit crunch, the widening financial crisis, commodity and oil price rises, and massive exchange rate fluctuations. All this has, inevitably, undermined both business and consumer confidence, contributing in turn to the current global recession.

This year’s “Best Ph.D. Workshop Paper Award” has been presented to Clemens Költringer from MODUL University Vienna for his work on Information Needs of City Travellers – Investigating the Implications of Consumers’ Information Search and Actual Travel Behaviour.

The PhD Workshop at the 16th International Conference on Information Technology and Travel & Tourism (IFITT | ENTER conference) is a platform for doctoral students undertaking research in the area of Information and Communication Technology in Travel and Tourism.

Marketing Research Project on Booking Behavior

BBA Students and Lecturers On January 26, 2009, a group of MODUL University Vienna students presented the key findings of a survey on Travelers' Booking Behavior.

On Wednesday, December 3, 2008, MU Vienna hosted a panel discussion on "Climate neutral" travel offers organized in cooperation with the NGOs respect (Institute for Integrative Tourism and Development), Naturfreunde Internationale and Klimabündnis Österreich. Recognizing the interrelationships between climate change and tourism as outlined in the UN reports:

In 1985, Athens was the first official European City of Culture; since then at least one European City has been nominated as a European Cities of Culture, pursuing the goal of strengthening the integration among European countries.

In the past, the European Cities of Culture have been more or less successful: Graz is said to be one of the very successful examples of a Cultural Capital. In 2003 the positive image grew and tourism boomed.

Invitation to Panel Discussion

Wednesday, 3 December 2008, 18:00
MODUL University Vienna
Am Kahlenberg 1, 1190 Vienna

How important is climate protection to the customer when choosing a travel offer?  And to which offers does the travel industry react?

The next MODUL University Vienna seminar series on the Latest Trends and Innovations in Tourism will take place on Friday, 14 November 2008, and begins at 2:45 p.m.

Our guest speaker, Mr Jean-Michel Lafond is the CEO of European Cities Marketing, the leading network of City Tourist Offices and Convention Bureaus representing 130 major cities through 31 countries in Europe.

Achieved occupancy is a key measurement in monitoring tourism activity at a city level. Arguably it is even more important to understand how sales are building in the forthcoming months.
MODUL University Vienna is pleased to host a presentation of Ms Lynn Jones, will outline how the LJForecaster system reports showing both historic and forward looking data, provide hotels and tourist boards with the destination level insight they need to plan how best to promote the city, and plan interventions that will attract additional business to the city at the times it is needed most.

The next seminar on the Latest Trends and Innovations in Tourism will take place on Friday, 31 October 2008, and begins at 2:45 p.m.

Our guest speaker, Mr Graham Miller, is a Senior Lecturer in Management at the School of Management of the University of Surrey.
Mr Miller undertook his postgraduate studies at the University of Surrey, completing his PhD in 2000; His research interests are: sustainable tourism, business ethics, corporate social responsibility indicators and accessible tourism.

Together with the UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), European Travel Commission (ETC) and European Cities Marketing (ECM), MODUL University Vienna promoted a two-days event on tourism statistics and strategic marketing planning, hold on September 11 and 12, 2008.