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ISTTE honours BUas with Institutional Achievement Award for lasting impact
BUas has received the Award for its long-term contribution to tourism education. The International Society of Travel & Tourism Educators (ISTTE) presented the award to Rob Simons, senior lecturer of the Academy for Tourism and ISTTE board member, on 23 October, during its 45th Annual Conference on our campus in Breda. He accepted the award on behalf of Jorrit Snijder, president of the BUas Executive Board, and Wilma Franchimon, director of the Academy for Tourism.
An award for long-term contribution
ISTTE presents the Institutional Achievement Award every year at its Annual Conference. It honours an institution that has made significant, long-term contributions to travel and tourism education, at any educational level and anywhere in the world. Earlier recipients include the School of Hotel and Tourism Management of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (2003 and 2023) and Les Roches, a private Swiss university of applied sciences specialising in hospitality (2025). This year, the award also includes US$1,000 towards an ISTTE institutional membership.
''In our programmes, students work on assignments from destinations, businesses and local communities. This award recognises the lecturers and researchers who organise those projects, along with the partners who provide our students with authentic challenges from their own professional practice. It is an award we proudly share with all of them." Wilma Franchimon, director of the Academy for Tourism, BUas
Education, research and consultancy
We were nominated by Professor Po-Ju Chen of Texas A&M University. This nomination highlighted the international environment of our bachelor’s and master’s programmes, which bring together around 7,000 students from about 100 countries. It also recognised our project-based education, in which students work on real assignments with destinations, businesses and communities. Through this approach, they develop collaboration, creativity and critical thinking, and they learn to base decisions on evidence.
The nomination further pointed to our research and consultancy on topics such as sustainable tourism and mobility, climate resilience, digital transformation, visitor behaviour, destination stewardship and social inclusion. We share this expertise beyond the university through consultancy, executive education, collaboration with the public sector and international partnerships. One example is CARMACAL, a carbon calculator for tour operators that we developed with the Dutch travel association ANVR and other partners. CARMACAL calculates the carbon footprint of complete holiday packages and received the UNWTO Award for Innovation in Research and Technology in 2017.
The conference in Breda
This year’s conference was themed ’Digital, Responsible, Resilient: Evolving Skills in Tourism Education and Research’. It brought educators, researchers, students and industry professionals to Breda to exchange ideas on the future of tourism education. This was the 45th ISTTE Annual Conference. It took place in the year BUas celebrates its 60th anniversary, and 25 years after the first issue of ISTTE’s Journal of Teaching in Travel & Tourism.
