The World Research Summit for Tourism and Hospitality: Innovation, Partnerships and Sharing recognized recent Colorado State University Ph.D. graduate Pavlina McGrady and Associate Professor Stuart Cottrell with its 2017 The Abraham L. Pizam Best Paper Award for their paper on “Factors Affecting Corporate Sustainability Among Colorado Ski Resorts: A Mixed-Methods Approach”.

The conference took place in Orlando, Florida at the UCF Rosen College of Hospitality Management. The award had more than 300 papers submitted, and 270 accepted with McGrady and Cottrell’s coming in first.

Cottrell, an Associate Professor of sustainable tourism and coordinator of global tourism concentration in the department of human dimensions of natural resources. Cottrell focuses his teaching and research on sustainable tourism, travel and tourism behavior, visitor impact management, and public perceptions for landscape disturbance issues.

McGrady, studied under Cottrell and this research was part of her doctoral dissertation in The Department of Human Dimensions of Natural Resources. Since, McGrady has used her education to become an instructor and program coordinator for hospitality and tourism management in the School of Business at Southern Oregon University.

McGrady and Cottrell’s paper looked into different ways that sustainability was being conducted at ski resorts throughout Colorado. They looked into how internal factors like staff turnover, top managements support in environmental actions, environmental training, and employee empowerment for being sustainable; and external factors like environmental regulations set by governments and pressures from customers and the community, and how these effected sustainability in the industry.