The motivation for the award granted to prof. Francesco Ricci is to be found in his research activity on recommendation systems in the field of tourism and technology. “His research on recommendation systems has been a platform on top of which many tourism researchers and practitioners have been able to build upon. He has actively been participating and contributing to the ENTER conferences and the IFITT community for almost two decades. He has also been very successful in introducing his PhD students to the eTourism community”, as Juho Pesonen - head of eTourism research at the University of Eastern Finland (UEF) Centre for Tourism Studies and member of the Board of the IFITT (International Federation for Information Technologies in Travel and Tourism) – expresses it.

The Hannes Werthner Tourism and Technology Lifetime Achievement Award is given by IFITT to an individual from academia, industry, or government who has made significant contributions to the advancement in the field of tourism and technology. The award is named after Hannes Werthner, a pioneer in the eTourism field, founding the ENTER conference and IFITT in the 1990s. He helped establish the field through both academic and entrepreneurial contributions. 

“The annual IFITT conference brings together people from both industry and research and it is very interdisciplinary. For me, this award means that I succeeded in making my mark with my research and that I have managed to respond to concrete needs from the real world of tourism and heritage”, says Prof. Francesco Ricci. 

(zil)