Professor Richard Perdue of the University of Colorado at Boulder Leeds School of Business has been elected president of the International Academy for the Study of Tourism.
The academy is the premier scholarly organization in the field of tourism with only 75 elected members representing the top tourism scholars internationally. The academy's goal is to further the scholarly research and professional investigation of tourism.
During his two-year tenure, Perdue plans to continue to build and strengthen the academy's membership and oversee its biennial conference in Beijing in July 2005.
"We must also increase the visibility and recognition of the academy within the tourism industry, to speed up and widen the delivery of our conference publications, to better serve the academy members and to continually strive for an effective yet efficient management structure," Perdue said.
William Gartner, former president of the academy, nominated Perdue.
"I felt that Richard had the desire, energy, contacts and innate ability to create social capital among the members and to further extend our contributions to the academic community at large," said Gartner.
Perdue has taught at the Leeds School for the past 14 years and before that was associate professor and director of the Office of Park and Tourism Research at North Carolina State University. His teaching interests include service management in tourism settings, mountain and ski tourism and international tourism development. He also is editor of the Journal of Travel Research, the premier journal in the field.
For more information on the academy go to the Web site at . For more information on the Leeds School of Business go to .