UQ Tourism lecturer Lisa Ruhanen departs Ipswich for Madrid on Sunday as part of an international effort to rebuild tourism in tsunami-afflicted regions.
Ms Ruhanen will be based at the Headquarters of the World Tourism Organization (WTO) in Madrid to help establish the TedQual Volunteers program.
The UQ School of Tourism and Leisure Management is one of just three members of the WTO TedQual institutions, an elite network of tourism education institutions worldwide, which will assist developing countries by tapping into the expertise of the WTO and its members.
Ms Ruhanen will establish the program on behalf of UQ, in collaboration with The George Washington University in the USA and Polytechnic University of Valencia in Spain, which are both TedQual certified institutions by the WTO.
She will be based with the WTO for up to six months, assisting with a range of international projects on behalf of the School of Tourism and Leisure Management.
Ms Ruhanen said that one of the immediate program priorities would be to assist countries in tsunami-afflicted regions, particularly those with economies highly dependent on tourism.
"In places such as Thailand more than 70 per cent of the GDP is from tourism. It is the major foreign exchange earner for the country," she said.
"The TedQual Volunteers program aims to place top graduate students and professors from one or several TedQual institutions to perform fieldwork to help development through tourism.
"For little or no cost to them we`ll be assisting both in terms of their actual tourism product as well as their image in key markets.
"The WTO TedQual Volunteers’ Programmes will also include on other occasions retired professionals with expertise in crisis recovery and government officials.”
Head of School and first Vice-Chair of the WTO`s Education Council Professor Chris Cooper said that Ms Ruhanen`s contributions indicated the school`s growing international profile.
"The School continues to strengthen its ties with the WTO, which is the peak international tourism body," he said.
“We also have strong links directly within the region, as a founding member of the Asia-Pacific Education and Training Institutes in Tourism and as a member of the Pacific Area Travel Association Education Committee.
"Beyond our desire to provide professional programs in tourism and hotel management, the School also has a dedicated sense of social responsibility, offering a full-fee scholarship for a Master of Business program to a WTO member government.
“We consider it a very natural thing at this time to embark on this new program and assist our partner institutions in the region, who are currently in dire straits."
The TedQual Volunteers program is one of a number of initiatives under the WTO’s Tsunami Action Plan, which encompasses Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia and the Maldives.
Under the plan the WTO Education Council has also launched an initiative to give financial assistance to officials from WTO Member countries affected by the tsunami, so they may attend the 2005 WTO Human Resource Development (WTO.HRD) Practicum and the WTO Tourism Education Quality (WTO.TedQual) Practicum.
The WTO is also jointly offering Mentoring for Excellence in Human Resource Development and Service for public/private officials, and a Seminar on Positioning, Re-positioning and Image Recovery in Tourism.
Media: For further information, please contact Sarah Schindeler, Marketing and Events Officer, UQ School of Tourism and Leisure Management, telephone 07 334 69989/338 11326.
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