Role of the Center
Rockefeller Center in New York City is the home to the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Headquarters
Industrialist Alfred P. Sloan, who established the foundation bearing his name, believed that the reservoir of knowledge that exists within universities should be shared with the leaders of industry. He encouraged the creation of Sloan Industry Centers to function as the conduit for communication between academe and business.
Today, more than 25 Sloan Industry Centers are involved in research projects with industry partners in such sectors as financial services, motor vehicles, trucking, food, information storage, Internet retailing, textiles and apparel, managed care, pharmaceuticals, construction, telecommunications, paper, printing, heavy industry and, now, travel and tourism.
Sloan Industry Centers are lodged at the nation’s most prestigious universities, including Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Vanderbilt University, and the University of South Carolina at Columbia.
The Travel & Tourism Industry Center at the University of South Carolina has adopted the typical Sloan Center model of bringing together the best and the brightest faculty of the College of Hospitality, Retail, and Sport Management and the Moore School of Business to engage in interdisciplinary study of industry issues and concerns in partnership with industry leaders to arrive at positive conclusions and solutions.
As proven leaders in their fields, a multi-disciplinary team of faculty researchers investigate and analyze management practices of travel and tourism businesses to ensure the viability and advancement of the industry. Their focus includes:
- Corporate strategy and management practices
- Financial and revenue management
- Risk management
- Organizational positioning and transformation
- Workplace and workforce issues
Even though the industry is one of the nation’s principal employers and fastest growing business sectors, it is especially vulnerable to political, environmental, economic, and social influences. One needs to look no further than September 11, 2001 to understand the impact of outside forces on and the fragility of the travel and tourism industry.
Until the establishment of the Sloan Travel & Tourism Industry Center, there had not been a comprehensive national research-based initiative addressing how the industry must restructure in response to changes in the wider economy, popular culture, government, global climate, fluctuating currencies, evolving populations, workforce influences, or ideological factors.
Very important to the Sloan philosophy is cross-center collaboration. Among the 25+ Sloan Industry Centers are a dozen or more whose industries affect the fortunes of travel and tourism companies. The Sloan Travel & Tourism Industry Center will be engaged in activities that foster collaboration and communication among industries in addition to its efforts within the travel industry itself.
Thus, we envision programs and venues that bring together participants from, for example, Internet retailing, food, apparel, financial services, aviation, motor vehicles, and other industries that relate to the business of travel and tourism.