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ATLAS Special Interest Group
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Index
Annual review of activities 2007Rob Davidson
University of Westminster, United Kingdom
davidsr@westminster.ac.uk
| The ATLAS Business Tourism Special Interest Group held their annual conference in Mannheim, Germany, from 04 to 05 December 2006. on the theme: "Contents & Methods: New Didactic Approaches & Solutions for Academic Business Tourism & Events Management Education". There were delegates from 9 different European countries, and the event was hosted by the Mannheim University of Cooperative Education. Day 1 of the conference was taken up by the presentation of papers on a variety of topics pertaining to the theme of the event. Day 2 of the conference was sponsored by M:con, the conference centre of Mannheim. Delegates had a tour of the venue, including a behind-the-scenes insight into the management and operations of the building, followed by a presentation by the managing director. In the Spring of this year, members of the Business Tourism SIG learnt with great sadness that the host of our 2006 conference, Professor Klaus Beckmann, had lost the battle with his illness and had passed away. From the inception of our SIG, Klaus was an active and loyal member, attending every annual conference. He will be greatly missed by us all. |
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Our 2007 annual conference will take place from 02 - 05 December, and has a Baltic location, beginning in Lahti, Finland and continuing in Tallinn. The theme this year is: EDUCATION AND RESEARCH FOR THE MEETINGS AND BUSINESS EVENTS INDUSTRY TODAY.
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Annual review of activities 2006Rob Davidson
University of Westminster, United Kingdom
davidsr@westminster.ac.uk
Lucy Horan
Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland
lucy.horan@dit.ie
The second annual meeting of the ATLAS Business Tourism Special Interest Group (SIG) was held on 5th and 6th December 2005 at the School of Hospitality Management and Tourism, of the Dublin Institute of Technology. It was truly a European gathering with colleagues from Finland, Germany, Scotland, Italy, Poland, England, Spain and Ireland attending. What great support!
The Faculty Director, Dr. Michael Mulvey opened proceedings by welcoming everyone to Dublin. There were three presentations in the afternoon from industry speakers which proved very interesting in terms of Ireland's development as a business tourism destination and the product on offer. Rob finished off the first session with a look into the future through a presentation of his findings from the 2005 EIBTM report (www.eibtm.com/research).
Supper in the college was a great opportunity for people to mingle and chat while enjoying the culinary delights on offer.
Tuesday was a busy day with a number of very interesting and informative papers being delivered in the morning and again in the afternoon. This was preceded by a meeting of the SIG members. At that meeting, a number of initiatives were discussed and agreed upon, notably action points which would improve information-sharing between the members of the ATLAS Business Tourism SIG, who are predominantly university professors teaching and researching business tourism in their institutions. It was agreed that:
Having worked so hard over the two days it was felt that a night out was necessary and so a bus collected delegates from outside the college and drove to Taylor's Three Rock just outside the city, at the foot of the Dublin Mountains. There followed a night of Irish "craic" (an Irish word meaning great fun). Dinner was followed by a performance of traditional Irish music, song and dance. Everyone enjoyed themselves immensely.
But all good things must come to and end and so everyone said their good nights and promised to make next year's meeting in Germany.
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Annual review of activities 2005Rob Davidson
University of Westminster, United Kingdom
davidsr@westminster.ac.uk
The Business Tourism SIG held its inaugural conference from November 29 - 02 December 2004 in the Fira Gran Via conference and exhibition centre in Barcelona. The event was held in parallel with the EIBTM trade show, whose organizers, Reed Travel Exhibitions, partly sponsored this ATLAS conference.
35 academics specializing in teaching and researching business tourism were joined by a number of business tourism practitioners and journalists who took time out from visiting the trade show to attend sessions of the conference. The academics came from eight different countries: Australia, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain and the UK, and 16 papers were presented, on topics ranging from business tourism curriculum development to research into methods of encouraging conference delegates to extend their visits, for leisure purposes.
Prior to the official conference, an open meeting of the ATLAS Business Tourism SIG was held to discuss issues related to the development of business tourism education and research in European universities. 12 members of the SIG attended, and it was agreed that members of the group would undertake the following tasks:
Progress in these matters will be reviewed at the second ATLAS Business Tourism conference, which will be hosted in Dublin by the Dublin Institute of Technology, and will run from 05 - 06 December 2005.
Details are available on: www.magictouch.ie/atlas
Membership of the ATLAS Business Tourism SIG has grown throughout the past 12 months, as an increasing number of European universities have launched courses in business tourism and conference management. The SIG now has over 50 members.
The next ATLAS SIG meeting Business Tourism will be organised in Dublin at 5-6 December 2005. Please read more about it on the ATLAS website.
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Annual review of activities 2004The SIG for Business Tourism was launched at the ATLAS conference in Leeuwarden in June 2003. It brings together academics who are involved in teaching and researching subjects relating to Business Travel and Business Tourism - Conferences, Incentive Trips and Individual Business Trips.
Since it's launch, the group has grown to over 30 members, from Western European and Eastern European countries. In addition, a number of researchers have joined. We use the ATLAS distribution network to exchange ideas and information on teaching resources and events relating to the business tourism sector.
From 30 November - 02 December 2004, we shall be having our own event, a conference on the theme of 'Business Tourism: Education and Industry' at the EIBTM show in Barcelona. The conference will take place at the same time as Europe's main trade show for the conference and incentive travel industry, in the Gran Fira exhibition centre, and will bring together academics and practitioners, with the aim of examining what both groups can do to serve each others' interests. The conference will be open to all ATLAS members.
An organising committee for this event has been formed, and will meet shortly to draw up the programme's event. More will be published shortly on he ATLAS website.
Rob Davidson
University of Westminster, United Kingdom
davidsr@westminster.ac.uk
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