Co-Chair: Dr Ross Tinsley, Edinburgh Napier University

Dr Ross Tinsley is undergraduate programme leader for tourism and lecturer at Edinburgh Napier University. Prior to that he taught research methods and tourism in Switzerland. His main teaching themes are destination marketing and management as well as tourism, society and culture.

His research focuses on destination development through entrepreneurship and cultural consumption. His current work centres on post-secularism in festivals and events. He has also researched and published on small tourism business networks and destination development as part of his PhD.

His co-authored paper Tinsley & Lynch 2001 was a significant early contribution to that field. As well as serving on the Executive Committee for the Association of Tourism in Higher Education (ATHE) since 2016, he also chairs the Tourism Society Scotland chapter and is a senior fellow of HE Advance.

Co-Chair: Dr Peter Robinson, Leeds Beckett University

Peter is Head of the Centre for Tourism and Hospitality Management at Leeds Beckett University. He is author of several books and peer-reviewed journals and has appeared on a number of television and radio programmes discussing the tourism industry. Peter has owned businesses in the travel, ICT, waste management and publishing sectors, and has delivered consultancy work for organisations in a wide range of sectors across the world. In 2021 Peter was Awarded the Victor Middleton Prize for Education and Scholarship by the Association for Tourism in Higher Education (ATHE).

Peter is a Fellow of the Tourism Management Institute and the Yorkshire and Humber representative, a Fellow of the Tourism Society, a Fellow of the Institute of Travel and Tourism, and a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. He is Co-Chair of The Association for Tourism in Higher Education (ATHE), a Director of The Institute of Travel and Tourism and he represents ATHE on the Tourism Society Board. He is Chair of a £41m restoration of a historic house and country park near Derby and was formerly Vice-Chair of The Museum of Carpet. His research interests focus on business planning, visitor experiences, heritage management and Cold War tourism. Previously Peter worked as Head of Marketing, Leisure, Innovation and Enterprise at the University of Wolverhampton, and also managed the institution’s Arts Council funded Arena Theatre. Before working in academia Peter managed EU funded projects in the Peak District, tourism projects in Oxfordshire and spent a number of years working for The National Trust.

Company Secretary: Dr Ilaria Pappalepore, University of Westminster

Ilaria Pappalepore is senior lecturer in events and tourism in the School of Architecture and Cities, University of Westminster, London. Prior to joining the University of Westminster, Ilaria worked at the Lille Development Agency, France, and later as course leader and senior lecturer in Tourism at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, UK. Her research interests include urban tourism; cultural events; creative industries; and urban regeneration.

Since completing her PhD on ‘tourism development in creative, non-central areas in London’ in 2010, Ilaria has worked on a number of research projects in leisure, tourism and events. She was lead investigator for a study on the impact of London 2012 on small creative organisations in East London funded by the International Olympic Committee. Ilaria is a fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a member of the Association of Tourism in Higher Education’s executive committee.

Treasurer: Dr Duncan Tyler, London South Bank University

Dr. Duncan Tyler is Associate Professor and formerly Head of the Division for Urban, Environment and Leisure Studies at London South Bank University. He has taught tourism development and policy issues since the early 1990s when he joined the University from the field of tourism development consultancy having done town planning and business planning projects for tourist resorts around the word.

Specifically, Duncan’s teaching and research interests are around tourism and social justice, and applies theories of lobbying and campaigning to tourism impact issues. His PhD was in lobbying networks and tactics in English Tourism Policy Development around the Millennium. Duncan’s other research interests are in urban tourism and city marketing and he has been a long term critic of the boosterist approach to tourism development in cities that has led to the recent debates about overtourism.

Executive Team Members

Dr Claire Haven Tang, Cardiff Metropolitan University

Claire is a Reader in Tourism & Management at Cardiff Metropolitan University’s Cardiff School of Management in the Welsh Centre for Tourism Research where she researches issues around destination development, tourism SMEs, Sense of Place, rural tourism, event tourism, food tourism and human resource development.

Claire is the Research Degree Co-ordinator for Cardiff School of Management and supervises a number of PhD students, alongside teaching on a range of modules across the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. Projects undertaken for MAKE UK (formerly EEF), Welsh Government, Football Association of Wales, Cardiff County Council, Tourism Training Forum for Wales, Capital Region Tourism, People 1st, Visit Wales, Monmouthshire County Council and Adventa include: exploring the food supply chain in Wales, economic impact evaluation of the UEFA Champions League Finals & Volvo Ocean Race, best practice in business and event tourism, labour market assessments, tourism industry training provision, school student perceptions of tourism careers and developing a Sense of Monmouthshire for tourism businesses.

Claire was a member of the Visit Wales Digital Tourism Business Project Steering Group (2010-2014) and has previously worked in the National Audit Office, on projects involving the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. She has been involved in the work of the Association for Tourism in Higher Education (ATHE) since 2011 and is currently Chair.

Dr Christy Hehir, University of Surrey

Christy is an environmental psychologist with a PhD on how tourism can better aid conservation. Christy is passionate about understanding how tourists engage with the natural world and the long-term impacts tourism can have on individuals’ subsequent pro-environmental behaviour towards our planet’s sustainability. She is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and Programme Director for Tourism / Senior Lecturer at the University of Surrey and is currently researching the future of polar tourism. Prior to academia, Christy had 10 years’ travel industry experience across the public, private and not-for-profit sectors.

Dr Seonyoung Kim, Sheffield Hallam University

Dr Seonyoung (Sun) Kim is a principal lecturer and the Subject Group Leader for Tourism at Sheffield Hallam University. Sun is responsible for academic management of the Subject Group, including portfolio development, business engagement and academic quality assurance.

She teaches a range of UG and PG tourism modules, participates in international projects and exchanges, and supervises PhD research. Her main teaching and research interests are tourism policy and planning, urban tourism, urban regeneration and accessible tourism.

Sean Owens, Manchester Metropolitan University

Sean is a Senior Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University, currently Programme Leader for BA (Hons) Business and Marketing at, having previously been Programme Leader for International Tourism Management. With an MSc in Responsible Tourism Management from Leeds Beckett University, his teaching is largely focused on sustainable development in tourism supply chains.

Prior to 2018 when he embarked upon his career in higher education, Sean enjoyed an international management career in hospitality and tourism, working for leading brands including Four Seasons, Ritz Carlton and Hilton, and also managed hotels in Greece. He worked in sustainable development at TUI Group for six years from 2008, working with industry bodies and charities on a wide array of sustainable development issues, including human rights, child protection, animal welfare, certification schemes and socio-economic impacts in destinations.

Dr Isabella Ye, University of Greenwich

Dr Isabella Ye is the programme leader for UG Tourism and Hospitality Management and senior lecturer at the University of Greenwich. She completed her PhD with the University of Queensland, Australia. Isabella researches in the areas of tourist mobility justice, socio-spatial bordering processes, liminality, visitor experiences/management and social inequality issues within the tourism sector, using visual and ethnographic methodologies. Isabella is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA).

Isabella has taught in a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate subjects in the fields of sustainable tourism, visitor experience design and management, critical issues in tourism and hospitality, and discourses in hospitality. Isabella is a critical pedagogue and specializes in game-based learning approaches to enhance student engagement and performances. She is a certified LEGO Serious Play® (LSP) facilitator for Higher Education. Isabella has previously served on the Executive Committee of the Council of Australasian Tourism and Hospitality Education (CAUTHE).

Co-opted Members

John Garside, Birmingham Metropolitan College

John Garside – Course Leader and Lecturer in Level 3 Travel & Tourism at Birmingham Metropolitan College (BMet) based in Sutton Coldfield. Prior to joining BMet John worked in the industry for 27 years with Travelbag, Continental Airlines/United Airlines and at Walt Disney World.  He studied Tourism Management at Sheffield Hallam University.

Professor Robert Maitland, University of Westminster

Robert Maitland is Emeritus Professor of City Tourism at the University of Westminster, London. He is an urban economist and after reading Economics at the University of Cambridge, and studying City Planning at the University of Nottingham, Robert worked in planning in London before becoming an academic. He established tourism programmes at Westminster and led the first undergraduate and Masters programmes before focusing on doctoral programmes and research.

His research investigates how tourism shapes cities and cities shape tourism, and his particular interests are the tourist experience of cities, especially world cities, national capitals and heritage cities, with an emphasis on tourism and everyday life. He has advised the British government and national tourism organisations on projects including tourism and city regeneration, planning policy for leisure and tourism, the effectiveness of tourism marketing, and public intervention in the tourism sector. He has been involved in ATHE since its inception, and was previously Vice Chair, Chair and Company Secretary.

Amanda Payne, Staffordshire University

Amanda started at Staffordshire University in September 2022 as a Senior lecturer in Business, Management and Leadership and has experience of teaching at foundation, undergraduate and postgraduate level (f2f, and virtual). Amanda is currently developing a new BA Honours programme in ‘Visitor Attraction and Resort Management’ – this remains as one of the only such specialist degree in the UK.

Prior to her time at Staffordshire, Amanda spent eight years at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) teaching a range of tourism and hospitality modules, and during the latter years was the course lead on the events management programme.

Amanda research area is tourism and poverty alleviation; she has also supported graduates with publications and worked collaboratively with overseas universities on several projects.