University lecturer appointed to world tourism taskforce

A senior lecturer at Coventry University has been appointed from a field of experts across the world to become one of three key advisors to a global tourism taskforce.

Terrence Brathwaite, who lectures in international human resources management and comparative law at the University, was nominated by peers and selected to become a member of a new panel of three world experts formed by the Association for Tourism and Leisure Education (ATLAS).

The ATLAS panel has been established for the next three years to boost the level of transcultural communication, training and education within and between the tourism and hospitality sectors in participating countries, with an initial focus on development in the emerging tourism industry in Russia.

As part of the €1 million EU-funded initiative, a network of Tourism Resource Centres will be set up across Russia to act as a ‘hub’ of knowledge, through which the expert panel will advise ATLAS on ways to encourage input from and collaboration between universities, governments and private businesses throughout Russia, Siberia and Europe.

Mr Brathwaite was selected to be part of the panel on the basis of his experience in teaching and lifelong learning and his expertise in cross-cultural ‘ergonagy’ – defined as the art and science of helping people learn to work.

The ATLAS panel has already visited the Tomsk Polytechnic University in Siberia as part of the first round of workshops on the project, and the next steps will be to develop lifelong learning programmes in the form of in-job training and retraining of the unemployed within four Russian regions – Tomsk, Altay, Kemerovo and Ivanovo. The initial experiences from these four regions will be widely disseminated to other universities and industry partners across Russia.

Mr Brathwaite, whose previous achievements include a visiting lectureship at Harvard University and the founding of the world’s first MBA Global Development and Comparative Law degree at Coventry University, said:

As a key member of the ATLAS association’s expert panel, I am proud to be flying the flag for Coventry University, which has now actively debuted on the global development ‘radar screen’ of the Russians and their  EU partner universities – as well as their European industry partners.

ATLAS – The Association for Tourism and Leisure Education was established in 1991 to develop transnational educational initiatives in tourism and leisure. ATLAS provides a forum to promote staff and student exchange, transnational research and to facilitate curriculum and professional development. ATLAS currently has members in more than 70 countries.

For further information, please contact Alex Roache, external press and media relations officer, Coventry University, on +44 (0)24 7679 5050 or email alex.roache@coventry.ac.uk.