Serena Volo, Linda Osti, Günter Schamel, Stefan Schubert (since 2008) and
Oksana Tokarchuk
The Centre was founded in 2008 and regroups researchers based at unibz and in other institutions that work on various aspects of the sector of tourism and published in international journals.
TOMTE organises several seminars and workshops, including the Consumer Behaviour in Tourism Symposium (CBTS) which takes place every year since 2008 in the month of December in Bruneck-Brunico.
TOMTE has developed an extensive international network and activities, further improving and fostering its reputation in Europe and overseas. Major activities include work on research projects, the development of new projects, publication activities, community service in terms of advice and liaison, the organisation of workshops and international conferences, as well as planning and delivering major research related events in the last four years.
TOMTE is mainly self-funded. It generates its operating budgets from competitive research project funding, the organisation of conferences, symposia, events, and advisory work for industry. Unibz has also financially supported the centre by having made funds available for CBTS from 2008 to 2011, as well as providing administrative support for the organisation of events as an in kind contribution. Some smaller amounts have also been drawn from sponsorship activities of local companies. As of November 2012, two large and externally funded research projects with a total funding of € 695,000 are carried out by two teams in TOMTE.
TOMTE members have published extensively in international journals such as the Journal of Travel Research, Tourism Analysis, Tourism Economics, Tourism Management, International Journal of Tourism Research, International Journal of Leisure and Tourism Marketing, TOURISMOS: An International Multidisciplinary Journal of Tourism, Journal of Wine Economics, Journal of Vacation Marketing, Social Science Computer Review, etc.
The output achieved by TOMTE (2008-11) includes 53 reviewed papers in international journals, with another 17 papers under review or in print, 4 guest editorships of special issues of highly reputed international journals, 3 books, 7 book chapters, 19 invited and 31 contributed papers at international conferences, as well as 17 industry presentations given under the TOMTE brand during that time period.