Tourism and Service Management

11th TourMIS Users' Workshop

 &

Monitoring Sustainability: International Seminar on Environmental and Social Tourism Indicators for Measuring Tourism Development

was a great success!

 

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

 

MODUL University Vienna was pleased to host two major events on September 10th and 11th, 2015: the 11th TourMIS Users’ Workshop (day 1) and Monitoring Sustainability: International Seminar on Environmental and Social Tourism Indicators for Measuring Tourism Development (day 2). 73 delegates from 21 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 the regular workshop attendees we happily welcome every year, there were quite a number of new faces in the audience, eager to learn about TourMIS!

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 contribution of Tünde Mester (Hungarian Tourism Plc.). 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. Moreover, Irem Önder (MODUL University Vienna) presented how TourMIS supports users to analyze the success of a destination by benchmarking techniques. Furthermore, she explained how web analytics need to move from a technology driven standardized reporting function towards a business objective centered approach, which provides useful information to the management. The system she presented is designed to complement, rather than replace running web analytics systems in providing useful and industry specific information, which is comparable and provides real insights.

The International Seminar on Monitoring Sustainability focused on the environmental and social tourism indicators for measuring tourism development. Thus, the sessions provided practitioners with the insights into ways of identifying indicators for monitoring sustainable performances and development. Stefan Gössling (Lund University) opened the seminar day by discussing the need for a change in attitudes towards destination management. Furthermore, he highlighted the need for monitoring the resources use in destinations and focusing on optimization instead of maximization. Continuing on this theme, a number of speakers from academia and the industry took the floor: Massimiliano Coda Zabetta (Higher Institute on Territorial Systems for Innovation), Silvia Barbone (FEST), Clemens Költringer (Vienna Tourist Board), Lidija Lalicic (MODUL University Vienna), Frédéric Cornet (VisitBrussels), Bozana Zekan (MODUL University Vienna), Ulf Sonntag (NIT), and Michel Julian (UNWTO) contributed with their own case studies and shared their expertise within this research area.

Both events were generously sponsored by the Austrian National Tourist Office and Vienna Tourist Board, and we would like to thank them for their continuous support. More information about these events, a detailed program, speakers’ information handout, and all presentations are available for download on our TourMIS webpage. 

We are all looking forward to the next year’s workshop!

Prof. Dr. Karl Wöber, President

Contact:

Ms. Lidija Lalicic
lidija.lalicic@modul.ac.at
Researcher and Lecturer
MODUL University Vienna