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Norbert Vanhove – a life dedicated to AIEST and TRC

At a board meeting for Association Internationale D’Experts Scientifiques du Tourisme – International Association of Scientific Experts in Tourism (AIEST) as part of the annual AIEST conference in South Africa in 2010, Professor Norbert Vanhove announced his resignation as Vice President of AIEST. He had held this office from 1994 to 2010. At his retirement party, he said that he had been an active member of AIEST since 1965 and a member of the board of directors since 1990. I, a member of the board of AIEST only since 2002 and President of AIEST since 2014, stated that I had not been born until 1965, an announcement that led to general amusement and expressed the degree to which Vanhove has shaped the fate of tourism studies through the decades of his involvement in AIEST. It quickly became clear that after decades of work, the founding fathers of academic tourism studies, with all their active involvement in this field, had placed the fate of what they had created into the hands of the next generation. This became particularly clear to me when I was accepted into Tourist Research Centre (TRC) in the early 2000s (Vanhove, 2014b), an association of tourist research institutes that was led by Norbert Vanhove from 1965 to 2012! Apart from his work with and for AIEST, and in close association with it, he managed to create an adroit group of experts focused on methods, experts who, by exploring the overlap between science and praxis, represent the concerns of international, European tourism and its prospects for continued development. As a member of these abovementioned associations, and especially as the President of AIEST, it has become clear to me that establishing such organizations requires a few distinct skills: diplomacy, which, on the one hand, means recognizing the diverse interests at stake and finding viable compromises, but also having the requisite assertiveness, accompanied by a certain degree of verve, to push through and implement far-reaching decisions step-by-step with a twinkle in one’s eye, without causing members to grumble. That is exactly what Norbert Vanhove was able to do in all of his years of service. Even at his age today, he radiates energy and enthusiasm that is exemplary for young scholars. Last year, in 2015, I invited Vanhove to the European Academy of Bolzano–Bozen (EURAC research) to hold a seminar on “Tourism projects and tourism investment decision” for the employees of the Institute of Regional Development and Territorial Management. I was fascinated not only by how Vanhove managed to captivate even young employees and motivate participants throughout the 2-day seminar at his age, but also by his energy. The reason I am telling this story is to show that there are people who, as scholars, do not just do their job; they are also capable of doing their job intelligently, without