IFITT Awards were presented to the winners during ENTER2016 eTourism conference in Bilbao (Spain).
See here pictures from the ENTER2016 conference and awards ceremony.
Each year, IFITT proudly awards innovative destination marketing organizations (DMO’s), and technology-savvy organizations working in the eTourism field, as well as outstanding research contributions.
In 2016 awards in nine different categories were presented during the gala dinner on Thursday, 4 February 2016.
1. IFITT Outstanding Industry Contribution Award
The Award is given to enterprises that make a significant contribution to the growth and success of technology adoption, integration, or use in the tourism industry.
Startup Enterprises:
Travel Appeal
Duetto
Locomote
Established Enterprises:
Seekda
Rome2Rio
Aliathon Holiday Village
2. IFITT Innovative Destination Award
The Award is given to destination marketing/management organizations (DMOs) that have very successfully integrated technology.
Greek National Tourism Organisation
Visit Kent
Ticino Turismo
3. IFITT Hannes Werthner Tourism and Technology Lifetime Achievement Award
The Hannes Werthner Tourism and Technology Lifetime Achievement Award is given to an individual from academia, industry or government, who has made significant contributions to the advancement of the field/practice of tourism and technology.
The winner of 2016 award is professor Gert van der Pijl, Erasmus University Rotterdam (in memoriam).
4. IFITT Journal Paper of the Year Award
1. Zhiwei Liu and Sangwon Park (2015). “What makes a useful online review? Implication for travel product websites”, Tourism Management, 47, 140-151.
2. Nigel L. Williams, Alessandro Inversini, Dimitrios Buhalis and Nicole Ferdinand (2015). “Community Crosstalk: An exploratory analysis of destination and festival eWOM on Twitter”, Journal of Marketing Management, 31, 1113-1140.
3. Huy Quan Vu, Gang Li, Rob Law and Ben Haobin Ye (2015). “Exploring the travel behaviors of inbound tourists to Hong Kong using geotagged photos”, Tourism Management, 46, 222-232.
5. IFITT Thesis Excellence Award
The Thesis Excellence Award awards students who successfully defended their theses in the field of tourism and technology between October 1, 2014 and September 30, 2015.
Category Master: Yao Lan, University of Queensland (Australia), for her thesis on “Identifying differences in hospitality experiences across accommodation options”
Category PhD: John Fotis, Bournemouth University (United Kingdom), for his thesis “The Use of Social Media and Its Impacts on Consumer Behaviour: The Context of Holiday Travel”
6. ENTER Conference Best Paper Award 2016
1. Iis Tussyadiah. “Strategic self-presentation in the sharing economy: Implications for host branding.”
2. Matthias Braunhofer and Francesco Ricci. “Contextual Information Elicitation in Travel Recommender Systems.”
3. Wolfgang Wörndl and Alexander Hefele. “Generating Paths Through Discovered Places-of-Interests for City Trip Planning.”
7. IFITT Best PhD Proposal Award 2016
1. Ella Cranmer, Manchester Metropolitan University (United Kingdom). “The development of a Business Model for the implementation of Augmented Reality.”
2. Katarzyna Minor, Cardiff Metropolitan University (United Kingdom). “The effects of hotels engagement with daily deal websites on employment patterns and employee wellbeing.”
3. Jang Won Moon, Clemson University (United States). “Will Uses and Gratifications Theory help us understand eTourists use of smartphones?”
8. IFITT ICT4D Scholarship
Grislayne Guedes Lopes Da Silva, University of São Paulo (Brazil)
David Karienye, Garissa University College (Kenya)
9. Best IFITTtalk of the year
IFITTtalk@Colombo – “Modern ICT for interactive Tourism Learning and Education”, organized in Colombo (Sri Lanka) in October 2015.