MU at the 5th Conference of the International Association for Tourism Economics

Irem Önder, Bozana Zekan, Ulrich Gunter, and Egon Smeral of the Department of Tourism and Service Management recently attended the 5^th Conference of the International Association for Tourism Economics (IATE), the leading organization in the field of tourism economics for exchanging information and developing knowledge. The biennial conference, held this year at MU partner university Hong Kong Polytechnic in Hong Kong, promotes the value of tourism economic studies.

Prof. Smeral was invited to give a keynote speech titled “Questioning the Stability of Tourism Income Elasticises: A Critical Perspective”, joining other illustrious keynote speakers Dr. Oliver Hermann from the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) who spoke about the history of tourism statistics and Prof. Stephen Wanhill, editor-in-chief of the journal Tourism Economics, who expounded on the contribution of tourism economists to the field.

MODUL University Vienna was well-represented at the conference with three more presentations;  Dr. Önder and Prof. Smeral discussed Forecasting City Tourism Demand by using Univariate models, Ms. Zekan shared insights on Benchmarking in European City Tourism, and Dr. Gunter presented his work in collaboration with Dr. Graziano Ceddia (MODUL University Vienna) and Bernhard Tröster (Austrian Foundation for Development Research) regarding International Ecotourism and Economic Development in Central America and the Caribbean.

Photo: Irem Önder, Bozana Zekan, Ulrich Gunter