TATOC has announced Professor Dimitrios Buhalis, from Bournemouth University, will be the keynote speaker for the annual conference in March 2012.
With the theme of the e-tourism revolution, Professor Buhalis will show how the Internet has emerged as the pervasive and robust platform for the tourism destination distribution and management. The Web 2.0 and consumer generated content based social media engagement are developing those issues further and develop them on a global scale.
Professor Buhalis will show delegates how only tourism organisations and destinations that can take full advantage of the opportunities will be able to capitalise on the benefits in the future and enhance their competitiveness.
Professor Dimitrios Buhalis is a Strategic Management and Marketing expert with specialisation in Technology and Tourism. He is currently Established Chair in Tourism and Deputy Director of the International Centre for Tourism and Hospitality Research (ICTHR) and Director of the John Kent Institute in Tourism at the School of Tourism at Bournemouth University and Professorial Observer at the Bournemouth University Senate. He is also the President of the International Federation of Information Technology for Travel and Tourism (IFITT).
He previously worked at the Universities of Surrey, Westminster and the Aegean whilst he had visiting appointments at ESSEC in France, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China University of Aveiro, Portugal, and the Modul University in Vienna, Austria. He is regarded as an expert in the impacts of ICTs in the tourism industry, the manage
ment of tourism distribution channels as well as in strategic tourism marketing and management.
He has recently included accessible tourism in his research portfolio. He has worked around the world and has written 14 books and more than 100 articles. Dim
itrios has been involved with a number of European Commission FP5 and FP6 projects and regularly advises the World Tourism Organisation, the World Tourism and Travel Council and the European Commission on eTourism.
Professor Buhalis will be joining fellow speaker Ms Lisa Ann Schreier, known as the Timeshare Crusader, who began her career in the timeshare industry in 1998 in Florida and today manages Timeshare Insights (www.timeshareinsights.com) where she writes, educates, consults and speaks on timeshare and related issues.
Known as an outspoken and passionate dynamo, Ms Schreier has written two books on timeshare for consumers and co-authored a college-level text. Her latest consumer “Timeshare By The Numbers” is due for publication later this year.
Ms Schreier also regularly contributes a column about timeshare in the U.S. for TATOC's Sharetime magazine.
Delegate forms can be downloaded from the TATOC website here