WINNING an award is always nice. Winning an award and being presented with your prize at World Travel Market is even better. Especially if it is a cheque for £1,650 and the opportunity to have your work published.
That was the reward Simon Child received for his dissertation on no-frills airlines in Europe, written while he was a travel and tourism student at the University of Surrey.
He graduated with an MSc in Tourism and Marketing in December 1998 and is now sales and marketing executive for Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum, responsible for promoting group business. But last week he was at WTM to pick up his prize.
The dissertation award, sponsored by London-based industry analyst Travel and Tourism Intelligence, was launched three years ago in partnership with Lincolnshire and Humberside University to raise the profile of the tourism education sector.
It was expanded this year to take in another eight universities – Sheffield Hallam, Surrey, Napier in Edinburgh, Westminster, Plymouth, Glasgow Caledonian and Bournemouth – each of which was asked to nominate one student’s dissertation for the TTI Award.
Among subjects put forward for the judges’ consideration was ‘An assessment of the Danish tourism industry’s attitude towards sustainable tourism and the Destination 21 project’ by Lone Alltorp from Sheffield Hallam, and ‘Changes in the distribution of the leisure travel product: the consumer perception’ by Emma Richardson from Glasgow Caledonian.
TTI marketing director Simon Bowyer said: “These awards are a good way of recognising the work of the universities and the quality of the students.
“I read the winning dissertation and it is fantastic. Very perceptive. Simon spotted the fact that the no-frills airlines market in Europe was overcrowded before Debonair collapsed.
“We hand-picked the nine universities this year on the basis that they are well established and highly respected in the travel and tourism sector but for 2000 we would like to expand the awards to other universities and maybe bring in some from overseas, as many of our subscribers are outside the UK,” he added.
TTI publishes Travel and Tourism Analyst every two months, which sells to hotels, the travel trade and business schools for £570 a year. Child’s work is set to appear in this next year.
All nine students nominated received £150, which was donated by TTI – Westminster broke the rules and put in two nomintations because it could not decide on one.
The £1,500 top prize also comes from TTI funds.
Bowyer said next year’s aim is to change the awards so that there is a first, second and third prize, and to bring in industry sponsorship.
“We did ask British Midland, Virgin and EasyJet if they wanted to help sponsor the awards this year but we were too late with the request and they were unable to help,” he added. “Next year we want to have more students nominated and hope to get the travel trade involved in sponsoring prizes so we can have more top prize winners.
“It is important that the industry pays more attention to education and the tourism students coming through, and this is one way of achieving that. There are a lot of positive links between the industry and education but there could be more.”
Former World Travel and Tourism Council president Geoffrey Lipman, now chief executive of Air Harbour Technologies, agreed with these sentiments. Presenting the prizes at WTM, he asked the winning students not to forget the young people coming through the colleges as they moved up in their careers.
Top prize winner Simon Childs added: “We all felt these awards were a useful way of forging links between universities and the travel trade.
“They provide a real opportunity for the trade to become aware of the range of skilled and enthusiastic students coming through our universities. I hope it is not a lost opportunity.”