Lincoln University Emeritus Professor David Simmons has been recognised with tourism’s most prestigious individual honour – the Sir Jack Newman Award..
The first university academic to receive the honour, Prof Simmons was presented with the award at the Tourism Summit Aotearoa dinner in Wellington this week.
The Sir Jack Newman Award was established in 1963 and recognises an outstanding industry leader who has completed considerable service to the tourism industry, including a substantial degree of personal involvement over and above what is normally expected.
Prof Simmons has been a strong contributor to thinking on the direction of the Aotearoa New Zealand tourism industry over four decades. He was one of only two academics invited to contribute to the New Zealand Government’s Tourism 2015 strategy and he was on the group that established the industry’s Tourism 2025 Growth Framework.
He is now contributing to the Tourism Futures Taskforce which is advising the government on the future of tourism in New Zealand.
In 2015, Prof Simmons was awarded a Fellowship of the International Academy for the Study of Tourism, the highest achievable international honour for a tourism scholar.
He has contributed to international tourism planning in Cambodia, Mauritius, Niue, Vanuatu, Nepal, India, Sarawak and North Korea, and advised international organisations including the World Wildlife Fund, United Nations and the World Tourism Organisation.
He has led major research programmes, with his work on tourism yield undertaken a decade ago still having considerable relevance today.
More recently, Prof Simmons established the Lincoln University Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Tourism, a multidisciplinary research centre focused on generating and supporting projects that contribute to the development of a new blueprint for sustainable tourism in New Zealand and globally.
For more information on studying tourism at Lincoln, click here.
