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60th AIEST Conference 2010

The AIEST, its Character and Aims

1. Fondation

AIEST owes its origin to the initiative of the Heads of the two Swiss Tourism Research Institutes founded at the Universities of St.Gallen and Berne in 1941, Walter Hunziker and Kurt Krapf. After the end of the Second World War both felt the need to make known the fruits of their scientific work to a wider circle of colleagues, and to resume the broken threads of international scientific relations in tourism, in order to develop them as well as the scientific work related to tourism itself.

The inaugural meeting of AIEST took place in Rome on 31 May 1951.


2. Character and Object

AIEST is an international scientific society of a kind which may be found in other scientific fields. Its aims as they were outlined and laid down at the outset and drawn up in Article 3 of the By-laws, have proved themselves and remained unchanged in that form to this day. In accordance with them the Association endeavours to

  • foster friendly relations among its members;
  • to promote scientific activity on the part of its members, in particular by developing personal contacts, providing documentation and facilitating exchange of views and experience;
  • to support the activity of scientific institutes of tourism, or other centres of research and education specializing in tourism, and to develop relations between them, as well as between them and the members of the Association;
  • to organize and to cooperate in congresses and other meetings and courses on tourism of a scientific nature.

Therefore, AIEST may be considered as being the international catalyst of scientific activities in tourism. The Association does not itself directly engage in tourism research and education, but it endeavours to foster them as much as possible within the limits of its possibilities and those of existing institutions.


3. Organization

The organs of the Association are the General Meeting, the Committee, the Secretariat General and the Auditors.

The Association has the following categories of members:

Ordinary Members
A person may be admitted as an ordinary member if they produce satisfactory evidence that, within the field of tourism, he or she:
  • is engaged in teaching or research at a scientific level;
  • writes and publishes scientific articles;
  • endeavours, in practice, to apply scientific methods or to translate the findings of scientific research;
  • is specifically involved in the promotion of tourism research or tourism education.
Honorary Members
A person may be designated as an honorary member, whether he or she is an ordinary member, or not, if they have rendered special services to research or to education, within the field of tourism.

Associate-Members
A body may be admitted as an associate-member with consultative voice, if it is an organisation or institution which is interested in or committed to the objects of AIEST.

Senior membership
For AIEST members who are retired and fulfill the following conditions could become Senior members:
A reduction of annual subscriptions can be granted to:
  • ordinary members who are retired

The reduction of annual subscriptions of ordinary members who are retired can be applied from the year after their retirement begins and under the following conditions:
  • at least 10 years ordinary member
  • at least 60 years old
  • no substantial income from active work.

The reduction for annual subscription is 50% of the regular membership fee.

Each associate-member, or body, is entitled to send participants to the Association's annual congresses, provided that their representation does not exceed a maximum of three delegates.

The admission of ordinary members is made according to stringent criteria by the Committee. Associate membership is granted by the General Meeting. Only ordinary members, who have paid an annual subscription fee, have the right to vote at the General Meeting. The associate-members pay an annual subscription according to the conditions fixed in the By-laws of AIEST.

The Committee, whose composition may be found in the appendix, is presided over by Prof. Dr. Peter Keller, Head of Tourism Division, State Secretariat of Economic Affairs, Berne / Professor at Ecole des HEC, University of Lausanne (Switzerland).

The Secretary General is Prof. Dr. Thomas Bieger, Director of the Institute for Public Services and Tourism at the University of St.Gallen (Switzerland).


4. Development and Activities

As a result of strict observance of its scientific character and the intensification of research and education in tourism, AIEST has been able to develop in a most gratifying way and has acquired a position of respect. Three focal points mark its activities and development: the annual congresses, the documentation and the maintenance of contacts, as well as the promotion of scientific work in tourism.

a) Congress Activity

Through its annual congresses, of which particulars may be found in the appendix, AIEST appears most noticeably before a wider circle of interested people who represent science, authorities and economics in practice.

b) Documentation

Apart from individual documentation, with which members and others are provided by the Presidium and the Secretariat General, AIEST has two further instruments of publication at its disposal; its Tourism Review and its series of publications. The Tourism Review, the Association's official organ, appears quarterly. It is published and edited by an Editorial Board, chaired by the President of AIEST. Owing to the quality of its articles and their authors it has been able to achieve a worldwide reputation and distribution. In the series of publications - the various publications are listed in the appendix - the Congress reports and lectures of the Association are made available in print, but other features are published as well.

c) Promotion of Contacts and Scientific Work Connected with Tourism

Through the Chair and the Secretariat General AIEST provides invaluable contacts for its members and other scientific circles. It advises thern, if necessary, and suggests suitable experts to the authorities or other interested parties. It also facilitates scientific research work and events in the field of tourism either by providing its own staff or by finding the services of others. Thanks to this work, AIEST has contributed to a very large degree to the stimulation of scientific work in tourism. It belongs to the organizations that are recognized by UNESCO, the Council of Europe an the World Tourism Organization, the WTO. Its membership circle, whose composition can be seen in the membership list, has experienced a progressive expansion in total and geographically (There are about 400 AIEST-membres living in more than 50 different countries of all continents). National associations of an analogous character have been founded in different countries which maintain a relationship of close and friendly co-operation with AIEST. Permanent working groups deepen the scientific activities between the annual congresses.

In spite of the remarkable succes it has achieved, AIEST will continue to promote and to support scientific work in tourism, the more so because many countries today are faced with a rising number of complex problems being due to the development of tourism, problems which can only be solved by a scientific, pluridisciplinary approach and with the help of adequately educated experts. Consequently AIEST also supports all efforts to make tourism one of the branches of university studies in order to create new or to enlarge existing education and training possibilities at university level for managerial positions in tourism.