KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Pr. Albert Assaf

Albert Assaf, PhD. is a Professor of Hospitality and Tourism Management – Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.  Albert earned his Ph.D. from Western Sydney University, Australia. He is the current Editor in Chief of Tourism Economics, one of the leading journals in the field.  Dr. Assaf has worked on several funded projects in the area of tourism strategy and tourism economics. He has conducted several seminars for practitioners and academicians across different countries. He has authored and co-authored more than 150 publications related to tourism performance, tourism strategy and tourism and transport economics. Dr. Assaf is the recipient of several research and teaching awards including the Lifetime Research Achievement Award-ICHRIE, the Isenberg Dean Research Excellence Award for three consecutive years, the College Outstanding Teacher Award, the University of Massachusetts Exceptional Merit and the Emerging Scholar by Distinction from the International Academy of the Study of Tourism.  His current research interests center on performance modelling, tourism and transportation economics, and Bayesian methodology.

Dr. Céline Kauffmann

Dr. Kauffmann, Head, Entrepreneurship, SME and Tourism Division, OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities. Dr. Kauffmann started her career at the OECD in 2000. She joined the OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities in September 2020, where she heads the Division on Entrepreneurship, SME and Tourism. She was previously Deputy Head of the Regulatory Policy Division in the OECD Directorate for Public Governance, where she led the development of the Regulatory Policy Outlook, as well as the work on international regulatory co-operation and on regulation and innovation. Before that, she was with the Investment Division of the OECD Directorate for Financial and Enterprises Affairs, responsible for the work on private sector participation in infrastructure and on green investment. Prior to that, she was responsible for coordinating the OECD work on the annual African Development Bank / OECD African Economic Outlook Report. Before the OECD, Céline Kauffmann contributed to the 2000 Transition Report of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and worked at the London School of Economics as research assistant. Dr. Kauffmann holds a PhD in Economics from the Université Paris I, Panthéon-Sorbonne.

Pr. Egon Smeral

Dr. Egon Smeral is Full Professor of Tourism Economics at the Modul-University, Vienna, Austria. Areas of research are applied economic theory and politics (especially in tourism economics, leisure and service sector economics), tourism forecasting, econometric modelling, impact analysis, market performance studies, and Tourism Satellite Accounts, designing and evaluating tourism policies programs as well as marketing strategies. He is Secretary General of the Tourist Research Centre (TRC), member of the International Association of Tourism Economics (AIEST), of the International Association of Scientific Experts in Tourism, of the International Academy for the Study of Tourism (IAST) and of the International Institute of Forecasters (IIF). Further, Egon Smeral is associate editor of the journal Annals of Tourism Research, member of the editorial review board of the Journal of Travel Research, of Tourism Management and of Tourism Economics.