Speaker

Dr. Bert van Walbeek

Dr. Bert “Bow-Thai” van Walbeek has been an Hotelier for 45 years and Marketer of Tourism for 35 years, a Motivator and a Master of Disaster since 25 years and a lecturer for 15 years. While working for Sheraton hotels in Egypt he had to face the marketing opportunities of the Gulf Crisis and developed the "Back to Normal" concepts. In Thailand May 1992 he tackled the opportunities of another major crisis and initiated TAT’s “The World, Our Guest”- campaign. In 2003 he wrote a PATA information brochure on Risk & Crisis Management: “Expect the unexpected“. As a taskforce member he supported destinations in need, like Bali and Chengdu. Recently he coordinated the PATA Nepal Tourism Rapid Recovery Task Force, bringing volunteer resources together to produce the campaign "Nepal, back on top of the world". For 8 years he was consulting the Macau Government Tourism Office towards setting up a separate government entity called Tourism Crisis Management Office. He is lecturing the “next generation”, through Bachelor and Master courses, on Tourism, Hospitality and Risk & Crisis Management. He was recently conferred the lifetime award of an Honorary Doctor of Letters ( Hon DLitt ) by the University of West London.