Visiting Scholar Robert Nelson

Based at the University of Delaware, Robert Nelson ’83 has been a visiting scholar at the CREF during the Spring 2013 semester. Nelson, an associate professor who is the immediate past chair of the Department of Hotel, Restaurant, and Institutional Management at the University of Delaware, used his time effectively. In addition to meeting with students, Professor Nelson worked on developing models to assess public-private partnerships with a goal of encouraging hotel real estate development. One result of that research was an award winning paper, co-authored by Nelson and CREF Academic Director Jan deRoos. This paper won the International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management‘s Best Paper Award at ICES 2013, which met this year in Bangkok, Thailand. The paper is “An analysis of data regarding public private partnership to encourage hotel development in the United States.” ICES is the International Convention and Expo Summit, which is the major Asian conference for purveyors serving the Asia’s MICE travel segment (meetings, incentives, conferences, exhibitions).