A native of the then Czechoslovakia, Rik, left his home country in 1948 as a refugee.
After completing his University education in the UK he was appointed as a lecturer in the Department of Hotel and Institutional Management at the then Battersea Polytechnic. In his interest in hotels and the related area of tourism, and in the service sector generally, he was well ahead of his time. In the 1950s the UK thought of itself as a manufacturing country and the interests of academic economists reflected this. The main focus of his career was neatly encapsulated in his inaugural professorial lecture "Britain, Workshop or Service Sector to the World" which was given at the end of his professorial tenure in 1977. "The British Hotel and Catering Industry" was the first of 20 books written over the next 40 years. He lobbied for and, as head of the new department, put in place the first degree programme in Hotel and Catering Administration when Battersea College of Technology, became the University of Surrey in 1966 . The influence of this on the University of Surrey and indeed on higher education in the UK and across the world has been considerable. With this achievement Rik was an obvious candidate for the professorship and for the headship of the new department in the University. He later led the development of the first degree programme in tourism. He founded the first two academic journals and sat on or chaired many of the major government and other committees. Although, he remained as visiting professor to the University until 2000 his career included a variety of overseas and consultancy positions.
Rik's contribution to the industry and Tourism Society will be greatly missed. |
