2019 ERIC FRIEDHEIM TOURISM INSTITUTE INDUSTRY ADVISORY BOARD ANNUAL SPRING MEETING
April 12th, 2019
On Friday, April 12th the Eric Friedheim Tourism Institute had its annual Industry Advisory Board (IAB) meeting with board members in both the Tourism and Events industries from around the United States. Our board was invited to Gainesville, FL to the College of Health and Human Performance and were given a handful of presentations about the programs that EFTI works under and some of the projects our researchers have been apart of over the past year.
PhD Student, Danielle Barbe presents her work on social media influence and crisis communication.
PhD Student, David Ma presents his work with data collection and analysis of Tripadvisor review data.
The day began with presentations from each of our research centers, respectively, the Tourism Crisis Management Initiative (TCMI), Tourism Analytics Group (TAG), The Tourism, Environment and Sustainability Group (TEP), and the Sports Tourism Group (STG). Each research entity presented some of their most recent projects with the board and discussed research topics that would be beneficial to the industry as well as the researcher.
The rest of the EFTI IAB meeting proceeded with presentations from Dr. Stephen Dodd and Dean Mike Reid, PhD about the future of the TRSM department and what we can expect in the next academic year. EFTI in conjunction with College of Health and Human performance is looking to expand the work of the Tourism institute in order to help bridge communication between academia and industry so that our researchers can begin working outside of the specialized academic research, rather to work alongside our industry partners. The final business meeting concluded the day for the IAB, where members discussed the current state of the Tourism institute and where the future of the institute, its researchers, and projects were headed. To conclude the meeting, EFTI and the IAB discussed next meeting dates as well as beginning the process of adding new members to the board.
