Last month in Rome, Professor Marianna Sigala was bestowed the Best IFITTalk of the Year Award during the 24th ENTER2017 eTourism Conference that took place at Palazzo Brancaccio in Rome, Italy.
The International Federation for Information Technology and Travel & Tourism (IFITT) is a leader in e-Tourism and organized the event. Over 300 delegates from 39 countries, both with industry and academic backgrounds attended the conference and participated in lectures on their chosen topics as they related to this year’s themes of research, destinations and industry.
Dr. Sigala was judged on several factors in order to win the award such as how many people participated at the IFITTalk event, lecture content and how her ideas will contribute to the tourism industry.
According to The University of South Australia’s website, Dr. Sigala is not only a “widely published authority in the area of Service Operations Management and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) applications in Tourism and Hospitality” she also has made a name for herself with her research winning her multiple awards and recognition over the years.
When speaking about winning this latest award she said that she felt honored, adding, “but above all I consider myself incredibly privileged for the opportunity to participate and put together the biggest panel of industry and academic experts representing all tourism sectors in order to discuss the emerging issues of the sharing economy phenomenon.”
“We explored the ‘sharing economy’ phenomenon, which is rapidly diffusing in all aspects of life and industries, including tourism,” Dr. Sigala explained to neoskosmos.com.
Dr. Sigala came to Australia around 2 years ago and was recently appointed the director of the Centre for Tourism and Leisure Management at the School of Management at the University of South Australia. She has a PhD from the University of Surrey, a Certificate of Advanced Academic Studies from the University of Strathclyde and a MSc in Tourism Management from the University of Surrey.
Source: au.greekreporter.com