2009 New Academy Fellows

Dimitrios Buhalis

Professor Dimitrios Buhalis is an innovative tourism and hospitality researcher, teacher and adviser that conceptualises technology-enabled strategic management and marketing solutions for tourism and hospitality organisations on a global scale. He is currently Established Chair in Tourism, Deputy Director of the International Centre for Tourism and Hospitality Research at Bournemouth University and Professorial Observer at the Bournemouth University Senate. Professor Buhalis is leading eTourism research and is working with the Bournemouth team for introducing technology in all aspects of tourism research and teaching. He was previously Programme Leader MSc in Tourism Marketing and MSc in eTourism, Reader in Business Information Management, Leader of eTourism Research and member of the Senate at the University of Surrey. He has been Adjunct Professor at ESSEC in Paris, Visiting Professor at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China, Professor Associado at the University of Aveiro, Portugal, and Visiting Professor and Member of the University Assembly at Modul University in Vienna, Austria. He has written or co-edited a total of 12 books, including Tourism Business Frontiers and Tourism Management Dynamics published by Elsevier, eTourism: Strategic Information Technology for Tourism published by Pearson (Prentice Hall/Financial Times) and Tourism Distribution Channels (Thomson), Managing alliances in the global hospitality and tourism industry as well as a series of three books on IT and Tourism. Dimitrios has also served as Chairman of the Scientific Committee of the ENTER'98, ’99, and 2000 conferences on Tourism and Information Technology, as well as ENTER Destinations Chair for 2002 and ENTER Overall Chair in 2003 and 2009. He has served as Vice President of the International Federation of Information Technology for Travel and Tourism (IFITT) of which he is a founding member. Dimitrios graduated in Business Administration from the University of the Aegean in Greece, where he was also a Researcher specialising in Tourism and Technology. He gained his MSc in Tourism Management (with Distinction) and PhD (in Tourism Management and Marketing) degrees from the Department of Management Studies for the Tourism and Hotel Industries, University of Surrey.

Daniel Fesenmaier

Dr. Daniel Fesenmaier is the Professor and Director of the National Laboratory for Tourism & eCommerce for the School of Tourism and Hospitality Management, Temple University. As Director of the National Laboratory for Tourism & eCommerce, Dr. Fesenmaier is responsible for directing travel and tourism research projects and providing consulting services to national, state, region and local tourism organizations. Dr. Fesenmaier received his Ph. D. in geography from the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada. He has taught at the University of Oklahoma, Texas A&M University, Indiana University and the University of Illinois before coming to Temple University.

Dr. Fesenmaier has written several articles dealing with travel behavior, tourism marketing and the development of marketing information systems for destination marketing organizations. Also, he has co-authored a number of monographs including Assessing and Developing Tourism Resources and Searching for the Future: Technology and Change in Destination Marketing, co-edited several books including Travel Destination Recommendation Systems: Behavioral Foundations and Applications. Dr. Fesenmaier is co-founding editor of Tourism Analysis, and currently is Managing Editor, Journal of Information Technology and Tourism.

Alison Gill

Alison Gill is a Professor at Simon Fraser University, British Columbia, Canada, with a joint appointment in the Department of Geography and the School of Resource and Environmental Management. She has a BA degree from Hull University (UK), an MA from the University of Alberta and a PhD from the University of Manitoba – all in geography. She has taught courses in the geography of tourism since 1977 and has worked at Simon Fraser University since 1985. Alison’s research has for many years focused on issues of growth and change associated with tourism in mountain resort communities. Institutional arrangements and the politics of place are important theoretical constructs underpinning much of her work on tourism and the transformation of place. Although primarily working in mountain settings, she has over the past few years extended her research interests to include coastal areas. Alison recently served as the President of the Canadian Association of Geographers. She serves on the editorial boards of Tourism Geographies, Journal of Travel Research, Annals of the Association of American Geographers and the Journal of Architectural and Planning Research. She has also very recently joined the board of the Annals of Tourism Research.

Bob McKercher

Dr Bob McKercher is a Professor in Tourism in the School of Hotel and Tourism Management at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He has been a tourism academic since 1990, working in both Australia and Hong Kong. Prior to that, Prof McKercher worked in the Canadian tourism industry in a variety of advocacy and operational roles. He was also a ski instructor and back country guide.

Dr McKercher has wide ranging research interests. He has published over 200 scholarly papers and research reports on a variety of cultural tourism, socio-cultural tourism, nature-based tourism, regional tourism development, tourism marketing and tourism education issues. He is the author of The Business of Nature-based Tourism (1998) and co-authored Cultural Tourism: The partnership between tourism and cultural heritage management (2002). He has also co-edited two other books. Dr McKercher is the member of the editorial board of 11 international tourism journals.

He received his PhD from the University of Melbourne in Australia, a Masters degree from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada and his undergraduate degree from York University in Toronto, Canada. Dr McKercher is also a Fellow of CAUTHE, the Council for Australian Tourism and Hospitality Education and is listed in Who’s Who Asia.

John Tribe

John Tribe is Professor of Tourism and subject group leader at the University of Surrey, UK. His undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral studies were all undertaken at the University of London. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Fellow of the International Academy for the Study of Tourism and Academician of the Academy of the Social Sciences. His research concentrates on sustainability, epistemology and education and he has authored books on strategy, philosophy, economics, education and environmental management in tourism. Funded research projects have included sustainable tourism and forests in the European Union, curriculum development in Moldova, quality in tourism education and the use of visual images in tourism. He is past Chair of the UK Association for Tourism in Higher Education was the specialist advisor for tourism for the UK 2008 Research Assessment Exercise. He is co-chair of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation Education Council and editor of Annals of Tourism Research and The Journal of Hospitality, Leisure Sport and Tourism Education (JOHLSTE).

David Weaver

David Weaver has been conducting empirical and theoretical research in the area of tourism management since the late 1970s, and currently specialises in sustainable tourism, ecotourism, the tourism area life cycle, and the relationship between tourism, war and geopolitics. He is currently employed as Professor of Tourism Research at Griffith University on the Gold Coast of Australia, and has held previous appointments at that institution as well as at George Mason University and the University of South Carolina in the US, and at the University of Regina in Canada. David is the author or co-author of about 100 refereed journal articles and book chapters, and is the author, co-author, editor or co-editor of ten books, including the widely adopted Tourism Management (Wiley Australia) with Laura Lawton and currently in its 4th edition. He is also the editor of the Encyclopedia of Ecotourism (CABI, 2001) and author of Ecotourism (Wiley Australia). Dr. Weaver sits on the editorial boards of eight international refereed journals, and has recently delivered keynote addresses at international conferences in Korea and Mexico. Current projects include an impact assessment framework for sustainable tourism planning, the geopolitical dimensions of sustainable tourism, stages of indigenous tourism, and visitor loyalty and activist participation in strictly protected areas.