The Eric Friedheim Tourism Institute welcomes exciting leadership changes this Summer. Dr. Rachel J.C. Fu assumes the role of Director of EFTI, as well as Chair of the Department of Tourism, Hospitality and Event Management at the University of Florida.
Although some communities are just now having to deal and learn from a crisis, this time caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, facing the importance of resilience for a crisis is not a new concept for some communities. Yu-Hua “Melody” Xu is a PhD candidate whose research focuses on destination resilience, community development, and sharing economy
The Eric Friedheim Tourism Institute has gone through some exciting changes this summer, including on our Industry Advisory Board. Howard Tietjen, professional with around 20 years of experience in the Travel and Tourism industry and a passion for new challenges, has started his term as IAB Chair this July.
Although some communities are just now having to deal and learn from a crisis, this time caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, facing the importance of resilience for a crisis is not a new concept for some communities. Yu-Hua “Melody” Xu is a PhD candidate whose research focuses on destination resilience, community development, and sharing economy
As we approach the end of our fiscal year, we want to recognize the accomplishments and thank our Industry Advisory Board for another year of dedication and support. In this past year, this group of outstanding professionals guided us on meaningful and timely research questions, helped us grow our Tourism Partners program with individual and corporate partnerships, and each one of them has been admirable in their own areas and positions supporting the industry during these tough times.
On Friday, May 1, 2020 we hosted our last EFTI seminar of the Spring semester via Zoom. Dr. Jamie Murphy, resident of New Smyrna Beach and Adjunct Professor at the University of Eastern Finland, presented Food (Waste) for Thought: A Wicked Problem to an audience of graduate students and faculty from the Department of Tourism, Hospitality & Event Management at the University of Florida as well as guests from other universities.
EFTI’s faculty and students are outstanding not just in the field of tourism, but also in their interdisciplinary projects. For another year, our researchers represented EFTI and UF in the Association of American Geographers conference, virtually this time.
The COVID-19 crisis brought swift changes in the way our society functions and, unfortunately, has reduced or eliminated the workload of many professionals worldwide. This is not the case for our EFTI Director, Dr. Lori Pennington-Gray, whose expertise is Tourism Crisis Management.
Last Friday, March 13, 2020 we had the presentation from Dr. Andrei Kirilenko titled “Re-reading Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina helps analysis of tourist dissatisfaction”. The project is a collaboration between Dr. Kirilenko and Dr. Stepchenkova (EFTI Researchers) and Dr. Xiangyi Dai from Beijing Capital University.
EFTI Seminars are a great opportunity for students and other faculty to get updated on each other’s works and share knowledge, provide feedback and collaborate. On February 21st, we kicked off the EFTI Seminar Series Spring 2020 with a presentation from one of our own faculty, Dr. Jinwon Kim. The project titled “Urban Sprawl and Physical Activity: A Macrolevel Approach” was a collaboration with Changwook Kim, PhD candidate in the department of Sport Management.
The group, composed by Dr. Andrei Kirilenko, researcher at the Eric Friedheim Tourism Institute (EFTI), and two PhD candidates, Shihan (David) Ma and Lijuan Su, from the UF Department of Tourism, Hospitality and Event Management (THEM), provided once again some “Expert Insights for Real Questions” , and proved that the tourism research at the University of Florida is one of the best in the world.
Last November 8, EFTI hosted a seminar titled “Context and Determinants of Cross-University Collaboration: Extracting and Analyzing Networks from Grant Acknowledgement Texts”. Dr. Till Krenz, Postdoctoral researcher at the UF Bureau of Economic and Business Research and Jared Adams, graduate student at the department of Sociology and Criminology & Law presented about a research project conducted for the Clinical and Translational Science Institute.
Every semester the Eric Friedheim Tourism Institute brings an industry leader to share his/her experiences and perspectives with our students and faculty as part of our Seminar Series. This semester we hosted Dr. Joseph St. Germain, President and Partner at Downs & St. Germain Research.
