GARS Award honour for tourism expert

Date: 24 February 2011

Dr Neelu Seetaram with her PhD supervisor Peter Forsyth, Professor of Economics, Monash University, Australia.

A lecturer in the School of Tourism has won a prestigious award at the German Aviation Research Society (GARS) PhD conference.

Dr Neelu Seetaram, a Lecturer in Tourism Development and Impact in the School of Tourism, won the Hamburg Airport Award for best PhD paper in Airline Economics and Management.

Neelu Seetaram presented her paper titled, 'A dynamic panel data analysis of the immigration and tourism nexus' at the conference in Amsterdam.

The annual event is attended by students from all over the world who are undertaking research related to the airline industry.

As part of her award Neelu was invited to attend the 13th Hamburg Aviation Conference held from the 9-11 February in Germany. The theme of this year's conference was 'The Record on Aviation and Environmental Sustainability: Industry Achievements and New Challenge'. Presenters included experts from airports, airlines companies, international associations and academia.

Neelu also participated in the academic debate of the Sullberg Society on 'Emission Trading Schemes and Implications for Airline Companies'. While at the conference Neelu attended a workshop organised by GARS where academics from Europe, North America and Australia presented their latest research on different issues pertaining to the aviation industry.

Neelu has now joined the pool of experts of GARS and has been invited to contribute to annual GARS PhD conference as an expert in tourism and aviation.

Neelu said: "I am thrilled to receive this award as the quality of presentations were very high and there were a lot of very good candidates. I am grateful to Professor Peter Forsyth, my doctoral supervisor for encouraging me to participate in this event.

"I think it is an honour to be part of the GARS pool of experts. It gives me the opportunity to belong to a vibrant community of researchers and to be in touch with cutting edge research in a field which is of interest to me."

For more information, view Neelu's research paper.