Winner of the 2024 award
Professor Dimitrios Buhalis from Bournemouth University
https://staffprofiles.bournemouth.ac.uk/display/dbuhalis
Professor Dimitrios Buhalis is a renowned expert in tourism management and technology, known for his pioneering work on the digital transformation of the tourism industry. His research and contributions have significantly advanced the integration of technology in tourism, enhancing both the academic field and practical applications globally.
Winner of the 2023 award
Professor Cihan Cobanoglu from University of South Florida
https://www.usf.edu/business/about/bios/cobanoglu-cihan.aspx
For his research and educational contributions to the eTourism field. Cihan is an accomplished and very active researcher, who never fails to inspire the next generation of tourism scholars with a positive and can-do attitude and genuine care. He is a well-known advocate of the internationalisation of hospitality education, MOOCs and equal access to all.
Winner of the 2022 award
Professor Emerita Jamie Murphy
Jamie Murphy, an Adjunct Professor with the University of Eastern Finland and Senior Honorary Research Fellow with the University of Western Australia, has decades of academic experience He has given invited/keynote presentations on six continents and taught tourism/hospitality at Essec Florida State University and the Lausanne Hotel School and taught marketing at the University of Western Australia Prof Murphy’s diverse industry background includes European Marketing Manager for PowerBar and Greg Lemond Bicycles, Lead Academic for the Google Online Marketing Challenge, dozens of New York Times and Wall Street Journal stories, restaurateur and F&B manager in Yellowstone National Park. Jamie has served as IFITT board member and published a wide range of seminal papers in ICTs in tourism and hospitality.
Winner of the 2021 award
Professor Francesco Ricci from Free University of Bozen-Bolzano
https://www.inf.unibz.it/~ricci/
Professor Francesco Ricci has made a significant contribution to the advancement in the field of tourism and technology. His research on recommendation systems is a platform on top of which many tourism researchers and practitioners have been able to build upon. Professor Ricci has actively participated and contributed to the ENTER conferences and the IFITT community for almost two decades and introduced PhD researchers to the eTourism community with great success.
Winner of the 2020 award
Professor Miriam Scaglione from University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland.
Professor Scaglione is one of the cornerstones of the IFITT community. She is an active participant and contributor to ENTER conferences and her research is an inspiration for the eTourism field.
Winner of the 2019 award
Professor Oriol Miralbell from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (in memoriam).
Professor Oriol Miralbell has served as President of IFITT Spanish Chapter and served as a board member for IFITT. He has devoted his life to the knowledge and innovation in the tourism sector.
Winner of the 2018 award
Professor Andy Frew from Queen Margaret University.
Professor Frew has served as President of IFITT. He is active in the fields of hospitality and tourism, specializing in the research, application and the management implications of information technologies and systems. He has published extensively, most recently a text in ICT and Sustainable Tourism.
Winner of the 2017 award
Professor Rodolfo Baggio from the University of Bocconi.
He has greatly contributed to the field of Travel and Tourism through his Research on a diverse number of topics such as the Tourism Environment, Knowledge sharing, Network positions and perspectives and many more. He got one of IFITT’s 2017 best paper awards for his research on Strategic Visitor Flows (SVF) analysis using mobile data.
Winner of the 2016 award
Professor Gert van der Pijl, Erasmus University Rotterdam (in memoriam).
For his scientific contributions, providing always an alternative view – especially when including organizational and human factors into consideration. He acted as a PC member of the ENTER conferences since 1996, and he has been an initiator of the preconference PhD workshop.
Winner of the 2015 award
Professor Josef A Mazanec from MODUL University Vienna.
He is a distinguished Professor and outstanding member of the tourism research community and a founding member of the International Academy for the Study of Tourism (IAST). He has done so many research especially in the fields of hospitality and tourism management, models of consumer and tourist behavior, strategic marketing and strategic planning.
Winner of the 2014 award
Professor Pauline Sheldon from the University of Hawaii.
With her book on eTourism already in the 1990s, she is one of the most outstanding first movers in the field. She showed and still shows leadership in numerous international tourism and eTourism related organizations.
Winner of the 2013 award
Professor Daniel R. Fesenmaier from Temple University.
For his scientific contributions in the field. He was active in establishing several research centers, identified and worked on several basic research issues and is one of the most cited academics in the field.
Winner of the 2012 award
Inkeri Starry from the Finish Tourist Board.
As a leading member of the Finnish Tourist Board, she was a first mover in the eTourism field already in the early nineties. She formulated and implemented many visionary eTourism strategies for tourism destinations.
Winner of the 2011 award
Arno Ebner from Swarovski (previously Tiscover).
Arno Ebner, previously marketing director of the Tyrolean Tourist board, founded the at that time worldwide leading tourism and destination management system Tiscover in 1991. In addition, he pushed for an active collaboration between academic research and the industrial community.