Harald Pechlaner awarded honorary doctorate from Matej Bel University

"Harald Pechlaner is a researcher who transcends the boundaries between East and West in the scientific community dedicated to the study of tourism on a global scale. His cooperation with the Faculty of Economics at UMB in the field of research and teaching is exceptional", Rector Vladimír Hiadlovský paid tribute to the Head of Eurac Research's Center for Advanced Studies and Professor of Tourism at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt.

Several times Eurac Research and Harald Pechlaner, at that time still leading the Institute for Regional Development, hosted university lecturers and students from Eastern European universities, among others from Ukraine or Georgia. With the university in Banska Bystrica, for example, the EU-COSME project "Via Transalpina" was implemented. The aim was to develop a sustainable transnational tourism product, namely a hiking experience on the Via Alpina Yellow Trail™. A number of European TEMPUS programmes were also realised in cooperation with the Slovak partners. TEMPUS stands for Trans-European-Mobility Programme for University Studies and specifically promotes academic exchange between Western and Eastern European countries. There is also an international partnership between the Chair of Tourism in Eichstätt-Ingolstadt and Matej Bel University, which has resulted in, among other things, a successful Master's programme with a focus on tourism and sustainable regional development, management and geography.

"The Central European countries, which include Slovakia, have an important function in closing the sensitive European interface between West and East", explained Pechlaner in his ceremonial speech and underlined the need for further cooperation. The conferral of the honorary doctorate took place on 7 October 2021 during the ceremonial meeting of the UMB Scientific Council in the historic auditorium of the University's Faculty of Economics.