The Tourism Society - People in all the right places

Society Chair Alison Cryer FTS, Board member John Humphreys MTS and Society Fellows Prof Robert Maitland FTS and Prof Rob Davidson FTS all took part at the 2nd EIAT Conference at Hotel M, Belgrade on 25-27 September.  The other leading UK presenter was Laurence Bresh, Marketing Director of VisitBritain.  There were over 220 delegates – mostly tourism and hospitality students from Serbia, Slovenia, Montenegro, Bosnia & Herzegovinia, Russia and Bulgaria, with other delegates coming from a further six countries. 

The opening ceremony was held at Atelier 212 theatre in central Belgrade, followed by a reception by Crown Prince Alexander at the Royal Palace.  Alison’s presentation focussed on destination branding and management, featuring the example of Oman and John presented the findings and recommendations from the major report published by People1st on World Class Customer Service for 2012 and beyond.

Other presentations focussed on new media, networking, sustainable development, TV and film location tourism, UNESCO world heritage sites, leadership development, branding, city destinations off the beaten track and conferences and events.

There was also an interesting social programme which included a visit to a Roman experience and fine dining in a floating restaurant on the Sava river.