Professor Rik Medlik

Slavoj Medlik (Rik Medlik), scholar of tourism and hospitality: born Lany, Czechoslovakia 13 June 1928; Assistant Lecturer, Battersea Polytechnic (later Battersea College of Technology, now the University of Surrey) 1955-59, Senior Lecturer, then Principal Lecturer 1959-66, Professor of Hotel and Catering Administration 1966-77 (Emeritus); married 1954 Lynda Stewart South (died 1997; three daughters); died Guildford, Surrey 30 June 2007.

Rik Medlik led, or was closely involved with, nearly all the initiatives to create a field of serious scholarly study of tourism and hospitality in the UK. He was responsible for the first degree programmes, the first research degrees, the first scholarly books and journals, and for the creation of the tourism professional body, as well as launching on their careers many of the leaders in hospitality and tourism. From 1966, he was Professor of Hotel and Catering Administration at Surrey University, the first UK professor in this field.

Perhaps his contribution really had its origins in his ability, as an immigrant, to see, as early as the 1950s, that the days of Britain being the workshop of the world were coming to an end and that its future role lay in the service sector. More specifically within this, he identified that hospitality and tourism would play a prominent part.

Medlik was born, in 1928, and brought up in what was then Czechoslovakia. He began his studies in economics at Charles University in Prague, but a tip-off that as a student leader his activities were being noticed by the Communist authorities led to his decision to leave his homeland in September 1948. (He was not to return until after the Communist government fell in 1990, by which time both his parents had died.)

He left illegally, with a colleague, on foot, with nothing but a backpack and a sufficiently large supply of cigarettes to use as bribes, and was soon in a displaced person's camp in Germany. From there he came to the UK, originally to work in the coalmines, but actually going to the Yorkshire textile mills, filling the labour gap. There he first became aware of the shortcomings of UK manufacturing.

Subsequently, with support from the Czech Refugee Trust Fund, set up in the UK after the 1938 Munich Agreement, he was able to resume his studies and he graduated from Durham University as a Bachelor of Commerce. He continued his studies at Durham with work on the development of the service sector, focusing on the place of the hotel industry in the British economy of the mid-1950s.

After a brief spell with the Bata shoe company, in 1955 Medlik was appointed Assistant Lecturer in the Department of Hotel and Institutional Management at Battersea Polytechnic in south London. Here he turned his hand to nearly all parts of the curriculum, from hotel reception to economics and finance. He also turned his scholarly skills to a serious consideration of the hotel and catering industry in The British Hotel and Catering Industry (1961), the first of 20 books he published over the next 40 years.

Medlik was the natural choice to oversee the plans for the first degree programme in Hotel and Catering Administration in 1966 when Battersea College of Technology, as it was called by then, became Surrey University. As he records in his unpublished autobiography, this was not an easy process and even when the decision had been taken, one of the external advisers was heard to express her concern at having to return to Oxford and explain at high table that she had approved a degree course for cooks and waiters. But it was an important decision, opening the way for vocational degrees more generally across British higher education.

In 1966 Medlik was appointed to the first Chair in Hotel and Catering Management and was appointed Head of Department at the new university in 1967. Next he turned his attention to tourism. With the award of a Goldsmith Travelling Fellowship in 1966 Medlik had been able to visit the major centres of tourism study in Europe. From this experience he recognised the need for education provision for this burgeoning sector in the UK, which led ultimately to the creation of the first postgraduate degree programme in tourism, which started at Surrey in 1972.

To support this, with his colleague John Burkart he produced the highly influential textbook Tourism: past, present and future (1974). Alongside this and his many academic duties, including a period as Dean of the Faculty, he also found time to initiate two scholarly journals, the short-lived HCIMA Review and the long-lived Tourism Management, which is now in its 28th year; to lead the group that set up the first professional body, the Tourism Society, now in its 30th year; and to sit on and chair numerous government and other committees.

It was a surprise when, not yet 50, he decided to leave Surrey University in 1977. Again, in pioneering mode, he and his wife Lynda decided to have a change in lifestyle and took up what we now call a "portfolio career". This took him on Fulbright scholarships to teach in the United States and he spent periods at universities in other parts of the world, including a spell at the University of the South Pacific. He served as non-executive director of one of the leading consultancy companies in tourism and hospitality, led a range of research and consultancy projects and continued his writing and scholarship.

He also continued as a visiting professor at Surrey University and was subsequently appointed Professor Emeritus. He established a position as the "grand old man" of hospitality and tourism studies, consulted by industry, academia and publishers for advice which was always well thought-out, impartial and wise.

After Lynda's death in 1997, he continued to live in Guildford where they had made their home after moving from London in 1967. His three daughters gave him enormous support and he in turn was deeply proud of their achievements. He took great pleasure in introducing his family to his native Czechoslovakia and he picked up with some of his friendships from school and university after a break of more than 40 years. He also continued the long-distance walking adventures which he had first started many years earlier with Lynda, including Offa's Dyke and the Coast to Coast walk.

In many ways Rik Medlik was a private and unassuming individual. But beneath the quiet exterior was a powerful and highly organised intellect, and a determined personality. This combination, plus the ability to take an external view of events, meant that his influence on the scholarly development and our understanding of what are now important sectors of the world economy and of education has been profound.

David Airey