The future of tourism: challenges and opportunities arising from the ever changing tourism sector

Lugano, Switzerland. 400 academics, destination managers organizations representatives, hotels and tourism managers, and consultants who work in the tourism industry will meet at the Università della Svizzera italiana to launch the largest international platform on the new technologies available to the tourism sector.

17th International Conference on Information Technology and Travel & Tourism will be held at the Lugano campus from 10-12 February 2010, organized by the International Federation for IT in Travel and Tourism (http://www.ifitt.org/) and the webatelier.net laboratory of the Faculty of Communication Sciences at the Università della Svizzera italiana (http://www.webatelier.net/). 

E-tourism represents a rapidly developing and growing industry, which now accounts for over 30% of the total market volume. How is the tourism industry responding to this inevitable revolution? What are the consequences in terms of managing the structures and reservation procedures for users?

The conference, which is entitled "Enter 2010@Lugano - eTourism: Horizons", there will be organized in the form of workshops, presentations and round-table discussions, at which the participants can interact with the organizers from the big-name online tourism companies, from Expedia to Google Travel Industry, as well as with academics and professors from the best-known research centers in the field.

The conference, will be held primarily in English, but will also include a day in Italian (Thursday, 11 February 2010) which will be attended by experts in the Italian tourist sector and from Canton Ticino.

The University of Lugano, which recognizes the strategic importance of the sector for its own territorial context too, has been active in this field for some time, in both training and research. The Master in International Tourism (http://www.mt.usi.ch/), coordinated by the Faculty of Economics and the Faculty of Communication Science, trains future managers to operate effectively and globally in various economic, institutional, legal, linguistic and cultural environments. For its part, webatelier.net - the laboratory of the Faculty of Communication Sciences - researches new technologies that are  used by the tourism sector.

To view the detailed program, registration procedure and costs, please visit:
http://www.enter2010.org/