Richard Perdue, professor of tourism management at the University of Colorado at Boulder's College of Business, has been elected to the International Academy for the Study of Tourism.
Membership in the prestigious academy is limited to 75 scholars worldwide and is based on a candidate's career research achievements. Upon election, Perdue was chosen to serve a two-year term as secretary of the academy.
Perdue is internationally recognized for his research on the social impact of tourism development and mountain tourism. He has published more than 70 articles and papers on those topics.
Founded in 1988, the academy advances the scholarly research and professional investigation of tourism. Candidates must first be nominated by a member of the academy and then be elected by at least two-thirds of the academy membership. The primary criteria are a candidate's research contributions and international reputation in the field.
Perdue was an outstanding candidate on both counts, said academy president William Gartner, a professor of applied economics and extension educator with the Tourism Center at the University of Minnesota.
"Many people have been nominated for membership, and my experience serving as president is that less than 50 percent of those nominated actually become members. Rick Perdue's reputation for research, especially in the area of service management, is what became the deciding factor for his candidacy."
Perdue's research has developed models of host community transitional stress and resident impacts that are widely used for tourism planning and development.
"Understanding and managing for the social carrying capacity of tourism communities is the key problem," Perdue said. His research on mountain tourism has focused on service quality in the Colorado ski industry, specifically on balancing the needs and conflicts between local and non-resident or destination visitors.
"While local skiers are concerned about prices and snow conditions, destination skiers are more interested in services and facilities such as restaurants, shopping and a resort's ambiance," Perdue said. "Providing quality experiences to both groups is an enormous management challenge, particularly given underlying employee recruitment and retention problems."
Perdue currently serves as editor of Tourism Analysis, is editor-elect of The Journal of Travel Research, the premier research journal in the field, and has served on the editorial boards of three other tourism research journals. Within Colorado, Perdue has served on the boards of directors of the Colorado Travel and Tourism Authority and the Mountain States Chapter of the Travel and Tourism Research Association.
For more information, call Rick Perdue at (303) 492-2923.