Professor of Tourism Business Juho Pesonen has been elected as the President of the International Federation for Information Technology and Travel & Tourism, IFITT, which is one of the oldest eTourism communities in the world. Pesonen been a representative of the University of Eastern Finland in the IFITT Board for more than a decade.
“Many new board members started their two-year term together with me and I’m looking forward to working with them. So far, I have enjoyed my time in the IFITT Board. It has become clear how important the Board and the Board members are in running an organisation that basically functions through voluntary work,” Pesonen says.
IFITT has around 400 members from all over the world. About half of them are from Europe but also Asia and North America are well-represented. The members are people working with technology in the tourism industry, academics researching and teaching eTourism and smart tourism, as well as tourism students and PhD students.
“It feels like I am standing on the shoulders of giants. All the earlier IFITT presidents are some of the most prominent names in the field and have accomplished so much. This brings a unique sense of responsibility into the presidency, and I hope I can live up to the expectations.”
IFITT is becoming increasingly global, celebrates 30 years of ENTER conferences
IFITT organises the annual ENTER eTourism conference, which brings together tourism and technology industries and academics and students for three days to discuss and innovate on technology in tourism.
“In 2023, we celebrate 30 years of ENTER conferences. We have chosen Johannesburg as the location of the event, bringing the conference to the African continent for the second time. IFITT started as a European community that was based in Innsbruck, but we are becoming more global every year,” Pesonen says.
“There is not a single academic community where I would have felt more relaxed and at ease than at ENTER conferences and IFITT events. People in the eTourism field, both industry and academia, seem to share a similar easy-going but highly professional mindset.”
IFITT is an important network for UEF’s tourism researchers
For the University of Eastern Finland, IFITT has been an extremely relevant community, and many of the university’s research and education initiatives in the field of tourism are based on collaboration with IFITT members. According to Pesonen, IFITT has been an excellent way for UEF to connect to a global network of eTourism researchers and industry. Through this network, the university’s eTourism research also has global impact.
“I feel that even after 30 years, the IFITT mission to share knowledge and experiences on eTourism continues to be important and relevant. In the end, we are all here to learn and understand how the world works, and what the role of technologies and tourism in the big picture is. To build this understanding, people from different fields, organisations, and backgrounds need to be brought together. There is very little that any one of us can do alone. Only through inclusion of various stakeholders can efficient and innovative actions be conducted.”
For Pesonen, IFITT has been the best place to learn about information and communication technologies in tourism.
“Every time I attend an ENTER conference or any of the IFITT events, I burst with energy and new ideas at least for a week afterwards. Technology is developing so rapidly all the time that it is difficult to keep up with what is happening. For me, IFITT has been the platform to do that. The amount of knowledge in the community is astonishing and how everyone is interested in sharing it.”
IFITT’s information sharing mission is best demonstrated by the annual Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism book, which has been published in the open access format since 2021.
“With the sponsorship of the Spanish smart destination network Segittur, it is possible to make all this knowledge freely available to anyone on this planet. The two latest books have now received over 800 000 chapter downloads, demonstrating how much this knowledge is needed. It is also a great example of what can happen when the industry and academia collaborate,” Pesonen says.
“IFITT is an inclusive community that warmly welcomes individuals and organisations to come together to utilise the possibilities of technology in solving problems in tourism and hospitality, and to discover all the good that technology can do for society,” Pesonen concludes.
For further information, please contact:
Professor Juho Pesonen, tel. +358 40 184 2698, juho.pesonen(at)uef.fi
