A researcher from the UQ School of Tourism has earned a University of Queensland 2008 Dean's Award for an outstanding research higher degree thesis.
Dr Rodolfo Baggio’s thesis explored the complex question of why some tourist destinations were more successful than others.
Announced this month, the Dean's Awards for Outstanding Research Higher Degree Theses formally recognise PhD and MPhil graduates who receive unanimously outstanding reports from their assessors' reports, which commend them on making genuine and substantial contributions to their field of research.
Dr Baggio's thesis found that the success of tourism destinations relied in part on the existence, and continued development, of strong networks between individuals at each destination.
"A tourism destination lives and develops well when the set of relationships between the public and private organisations operating in its territory are well formed,’’ Dr Baggio said.
He said relationships between organisations at various destinations could be viewed as a network that moved useful ideas between members.
Dr Baggio said understanding and measuring the way that the diffusion of that knowledge occurred created an opportunity to experiment with different network configurations and choose the most efficient.
Dr Baggio's thesis has shown there is a possibility to implement practical tools and analysis methods able to build future development scenarios and provide more effective guidance to tourism practitioners and managers in their efforts to foster sustainable growth of their organisations.
"We may change the capacity of the organisations in the network to transfer information and see how the speed of diffusion changes,’’ he said.
"For example, we may see how effective an `education’ program can be for the whole system.
"Or we can modify the linkages and find out whether fostering collaboration among operators can provide better results. The different scenarios can then be evaluated by balancing efforts and results.’’
Media: For more information phone Jodie Powell, Media Officer, UQ School of Tourism, on 0409 946 796.
