Dr. Janet Cochrane's responsibilities include Income-generating consultancy and research, academic research, and lecturing and supervision at higher levels in planning, management, marketing and commercial success of ecotourism, tourism in protected areas, and community-based tourism. For further information please visit www.leedsmet.ac.uk

Dr. Xavier Font's education is in tourism management and marketing, and his research focuses on marketing and management of ecolabels in tourism and hospitality. He has co-authored and co-edited three books in English (Tourism ecolabelling: certification and promotion of sustainable management, Environmental management for rural tourism and recreation, Forest tourism and recreation) and one in Spanish (Marketing of tourist destinations: analysis and development) and published in a variety of academic journals. For further information please visit www.xavierfont.info

Prof. Harold Goodwin researches on tourism, local economic development and poverty reduction, conservation and responsible tourism and teaches Masters and PhD students as well as the industry, local communities, governments, and conservationists. Harold also undertakes consultancy and evaluations for companies, NGOs, governments, and international organisations. For further information please visit www.haroldgoodwin.info

Dr Emma Harvey is Director of SaltaSustainable where she partners amongst others in music and events, TV and film production. She worked with The Climate Group, the Live Earth LA team and Wembley Stadium to green up Live Earth UK. Other clients include Virgin Atlantic, Enterprise Inns and Divine Chocolate – as well as Thresher Group, Jet2.com, Total for Divine (see www.saltasustainable.co.uk). Her background in psychology and behaviour change, and monitoring and evaluation research in health sciences bring a robust academic background for evaluation consultancy for large scale, complex projects. Dr Harvey will take the role of course leader for the MSc responsible tourism management.

Dr Andreas Walmsley specialises in Human Resource Management, Entrepreneurship and Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in tourism, and he has also conducted research into regional economic development and pricing strategies of tourist attractions. He has conducted research for a number of tourism and non-tourism organisations including two UK regional tourist boards, the Council for Hospitality Management Education, DEFRA and the University Forum for Human Resource Development. He is an executive member of the Association for Tourism in Higher Education for which he compiled a report on the status of tourism higher education in the UK. His PhD focused on career development in tourism and he has recently contributed two book chapters relating to this theme. He is course leader for the MSc Responsible Hospitality Management at ICRT.

Adama Bah is currently co-ordinator of the Travel Foundation projects in The Gambia, which includes the Gambia is Good demonstration farm and contributing to poverty reduction for 800+ predominantly women farmers through the supply of fruit and vegetables to the hotels. Adama founded Tourism Concern in The Gambia, went on to create ASSET and served as Secretary and then Chair. Adama worked with Harold Goodwin on the DFID funded project on market access for the informal sector which succeeded in significantly increased their earnings and improved the tourism experience in The Gambia. At the end of the DFID funded project the project steering committee became the Gambian Responsible Tourism Partnership.

Adama is part of the ICRT West Africa and serves on the Executive of ASSET. With the Leeds Met ICRT a series of courses have been run in The Gambia which offer Gambians and international students the opportunity to study together and work towards creating a more responsible form of tourism.

You can download a copy of Bah A & Goodwin H (2003) Improving Access for the Informal Sector to Tourism in The Gambia Pro-Poor Tourism, London.

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Paulina Bohdanowicz's area of interest includes corporate social responsibility and environmental issues in the hotel, travel and tourism industry, with particular focus on energy aspects (consumption patterns, energy efficiency and conservation possibilities, as well as applicability of renewable energies). She is also interested in eco-certification and eco-labelling schemes, as well as environmental reporting and benchmarking tools for the hotel and tourism industry.  The influence that behaviour, of staff as well as guests, has on the energy consumption patters in a hotel facility and possible methods of altering behaviour are part of her research area.

She also performs investigations on how tourism can enhance the environmental awareness among the general public, as well as the tools that can be developed and used to that end. Recently, she has been working on modelling and forecasting of resource consumption in the hotel facilities, as well as perform investigations on benchmarks and benchmarking weighting factors for hotel components.

Benjamin Carey is a sustainable tourism expert with 20 years professional experience in 40 countries, ranging from mass market resorts to emerging ecotourism destinations.

In 2002, he established Dunira Strategy (www.dunira.com), which focuses on the sustainable development and environmental management of tourism and engages a broad range of stakeholders, especially in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Benjamin has a particular interest in capacity building for emerging destinations and those recovering from conflict. Recent and current activities have involved projects in Russia, Armenia, Georgia, Poland, Croatia, Ireland, Scotland, Iran, Lebanon and Rwanda. Clients include the British Foreign Office, International Business Leaders Forum, United Nations Environment Programme, The Travel Foundation and WWF, as well as heritage organisations and environment agencies, local authorities, tourist boards and ministries, and regional and international development agencies. Benjamin is a visiting fellow at Leeds Metropolitan University, appointed member of the Foreign Office's Consular Stakeholder Panel, founding member of the UNESCO Scotland Committee and chairman of Tourism Society Scotland www.tourismsociety.org

Based in Kathmandu Nepal with over 30 years experience in the sector, Lisa Choegyal is an authority on planning, operating and marketing tourism, particularly pro-poor sustainable tourism. With Tourism Resource Consultants Ltd. (TRC) of Wellington, New Zealand she has undertaken consultancy roles using tourism for development with international agencies, NGOs and the private sector throughout the Asia Pacific region.

Lisa worked for over 20 years with the Tiger Mountain Group Nepal and is currently still associated as an adviser. One of Asia's foremost nature and adventure tourism operators, Tiger Mountain pioneered operations such as Tiger Tops Jungle Lodge in Royal Chitwan National Park and Mountain Travel Nepal, the first trekking and mountaineering company in the Himalaya. She retains strong networks of industry contacts in the major source markets of Australasia, Europe and North America. She has worked on related areas of environmental preservation, conservation awareness, and community, government and media liaison. She is an author, photographer, and editor of travel and guidebook publications. She is widely experienced in production coordination and location management for documentary and feature films.

Robert Cleverdon has worked for 35 years as a tourism consultant, his involvement covering studies in: planning the development of the tourism sector in countries throughout the world; likely trends in the future demand for different types of travel; and the development and marketing of particular products.

After employment with Economist Intelligence Unit, from the mid 1980s he has focused on tourism planning and marketing consultancy to serve developing countries in the encouragement, establishment and operation of their tourism sectors. Assistance has been given both at the macro level working with national and provincial/state governments and at the micro level working with individual developers/entrepreneurs. He has a strong interest in applying the principles of fair trade to the travel and tourism sectors. He has been the WTO's advisor on its global tourism forecasting research for the past ten years. Apart from consultancy, he has organised and participated in training courses on tourism development planning and marketing; and worked with a number of universities in designing, developing and leading Masters level international tourism development courses, drafting distance learning tourism course material, and acting as external examiner.

Andrew Eaglen is an expert in development strategies for tourism organisations and destinations. Recent consultancy work has included the development of a Tourism master plan for S.W. China in collaboration with key stakeholders. Previous experience has included business and management consultancy for public, private and not for profit organisations in addition to business development action research and research project management at a range of UK Universities. He is also currently the Director of Postgraduate International Tourism Management.

Nicole is Managing Director of 'mascontour', a Tourism Consulting & Regional Planning consultancy. Nicole has worked on the micro and macro level with local communities, the public and private sector and NGOs. As a social anthropologist her main work has been in project management, participatory methodologies, research, planning and monitoring. She has organized various conferences and training workshops on these issues. She has several years of experience as Tourism Consultant focusing on Rural and Cultural Tourism, Community-based Tourism, Tourism Management in Protected Areas and Tourism & Poverty Reduction.

She lived for six years in Bangkok/Thailand and worked there as a study tour guide, travel photographer and tourism consultant in the region focussing on community-based tourism. Afterwards she joined for a period of two years the Department of Protected Areas (SERNAP) in La Paz/Bolivia where she organized in cooperation with ICRT a seminar on "Pro-Poor-Tourism" for local tourism consultants. Currently she is a visiting lecturer in Sustainable Tourism at the University of Applied Sciences in Eberswalde near Berlin (Master Programme). Nicole has published as well several articles and books on tourism, participation and development. She is especially interested in facilitating the implementation of pro-poor-tourism.

Dr Rebecca Hawkins has more than 15 years experience in development of strategies and policies for sustainable tourism.   In recent years, she has been involved in many of the projects that have formed the sustainable tourism debate, including: the development of a set of supplier guidelines for responsible tourism for the Federation of Tour Operators, the management and development of an association to provide the UK’s leading hotels with sustainable development advice (the Considerate Hoteliers Association), the development of a voluntary energy efficiency agreement between Government and the hospitality sector, the development of an on-line sustainability benchmarking tool for hotels; a major review of tourism ecolabelling programmes, development of proposals for national sustainable tourism certification programmes, helping to define the components of a sustainable society and drafting the UK Government consultation documents on sustainable tourism. Dr Hawkins will lead the consultancy activities within ICRT.

Heidi is a senior consultant with Edge Tourism Solutions based in Cape Town and Director of the ICRT-South Africa. Heidi was formerly a Senior Lecturer at the Cape Technikon, Cape Town, teaching "Tourism Development" at undergraduate and post-graduate levels (1994- 1998). She subsequently published a textbook on 'Tourism Development' written for Southern African and developing country students (Oxford University Press, 2002) and is now working on the second edition. Heidi became involved with the International Centre for Responsible Tourism as a contributor to the South African Responsible Tourism Guidelines and the Manual.

Heidi is a qualified urban and regional planner and specialises in tourism destination planning frameworks and tourism impact assessments. She has undertaken consultancy and research for the Department for International Development, South African Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Western Cape Provincial Government, Gauteng Tourism Authority, Krasnodar Krai Government (Russian Federation), Robben Island World Heritage Site, City of Cape Town and various other local authorities in South Africa, various private sector clients.

Hugo Kimber’s career has included senior positions in leisure travel, destination management and travel management and close involvement with sustainable travel issues at UK and destination level over the last 20 years. He is regular speaker at major industry events and is a member of a number of leading industry groups addressing issues of carbon reduction and the implementation of coherent strategies to advance corporate sustainability. He is the author of the recent IIED report on aviation emissions and his strategic vision on the development of the voluntary carbon sector, management and reduction have established him as a thought leader in this area.

He is CEO of The Carbon Consultancy which provides carbon management and strategic consultancy within the travel industry. Founded in 2006, the company’s clients include tour operators, hoteliers, travel management companies, tourist boards and online travel agencies. The company delivers advanced reporting, education programmes, footprint analysis, reduction and mitigation strategies for its clients. www.thecarbonconsultancy.co.uk

Anna Pollock has over 30 years’ experience working in the tourism sector as a consultant, strategist, futurist, change agent and entrepreneur. Described as an irrepressibly curious “renaissance woman”, her strength derives from an ability to dig beneath surface trends to find and make sense of the real drivers of change combined with a creative capacity to develop innovative responses.

www.desticorp.com

www.theicarusfoundation.com

Prof. Mike Robinson holds the Chair of Tourism and Culture at Leeds Metropolitan University. He is also Director of the Centre for Tourism and Cultural Change (www.tourism-culture.com) - an international research body that carries out work on the changing relationships between tourism and culture.

For the past 17 years Mike's work has focused upon research in the field of tourism and culture. He has published books on Tourism and Cultural Conflicts, Literature and Tourism, Cultural Festivals and Tourism, and the Politics of Cultural Tourism. Mike has edited a further 11 books on tourism. In 2005 Mike was commissioned by UNESCO to research and write a major report on Tourism, Culture and Sustainable Development. Mike's research interests include heritage tourism, cultural festivals and tourist/tourism narratives and tourist behaviour. He has worked on tourism projects and tourism development strategy in the UK, Spain, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and India. His recent research, funded by the USA's Social Science Research Council, focuses on tourism and heritage relationships in the Middle East. He is a Board member/Trustee of the Council for British Research in the Levant, an Institute of the British Academy.

Dr Shaun Russell is an environmental scientist with 30 years of experience in the field of conservation and development, and protected area management. Dr Russell has been involved in tourism-related projects on all continents, including Antarctica. His earlier career was spent mainly in Africa, where he contributed to many wildlife tourism initiatives, including the UK aid programme's sustainable tourism research study in Zimbabwe. Dr Russell also has experience of leading a commercial tourism operation (“Ecotourism Safari”) in Central Africa, and advising a South American cruise ship company on environmental management.

Dr Russell recently completed a four-year training project for community-based tourism and conservation practitioners in the small island States of the Pacific. During 2005 Dr Russell also co-organised a UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office-funded seminar on sustainable tourism in Santiago, Chile. He is currently managing a British Government-funded initiative that includes tourism planning and management in the newly-declared UNESCO Biosphere Reserve of the Cape Horn archipelago in southern Chile.

Dr Anna Spenceley works in southern Africa on sustainable tourism issues, particularly in relation to biodiversity conservation, protected areas, sustainable livelihoods, corporate social responsibility and poverty alleviation. Her consultancy, research and project management experience over the past nine years has included tourism and conservation policy, participatory planning, nature-based tourism business management, environmental and ecological assessment, monitoring, and the socio-cultural and socio-economic assessment of tourism and wildlife impacts. She obtained her doctorate on sustainable nature-based tourism assessment from the International Centre for Responsible Tourism when it was at the University of Greenwich.

Dr Richard Tapper is an expert in the sustainable development of tourism, with extensive experience of consultancy with industry, governments and NGOs and international organisations.

 

Prof. Rhodri Thomas is Institute of Travel and Tourism (ITT) Professor of Tourism and Events Policy and engages in research which seeks to understand and influence public policy and practice against a backdrop of social, cultural and economic change. His particular interests relate to tourism policy formation and change, strategy and evaluation, especially in the context of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Rhodri is an active member of the UK Centre for Events Management based at the University and has also interests in connections between festivals/events and economic development. He is Managing Editor of the Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events.

Rhodri was, until recently, Convenor of the ATLAS Tourism SMEs Research Network. he has acted as ‘specialist expert’ for the OECD and European Commission and has worked on a variety of projects for, amongst others, the UK government’s Department for Education and Skills (DfES) and Small Business Service (SBS), the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Welsh Development Agency, and People First (the National Sector Skills Council). He is involved directly in strategic tourism and major events policy-making within the region, as Non-Executive Director of Yorkshire Tourist Board.

Dr Matt Walpole is the Head of Ecosystem Assessment at UNEP-WCMC in Cambridge. His PhD thesis (1994-1997) was a model, multidisciplinary study of tourism in Komodo National Park, Indonesia, that contributed to the development of DFID’s stakeholder guidelines for nature-based tourism. Matt completed his PhD as part of the Tourism, Conservation and Sustainable Development research project directed by Harold Goodwin at the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology at the University of Kent. Matt subsequently worked as a project manager and consultant on a range of international projects that seek to integrated conservation and local development through tourism, using a process of research, capacity-building and implementation as a senior research associate based at the University of Kent. More recentlly, he worked as the Programme Co-ordinator, Biodiversity and Human Needs at Fauna & Flora Intenational. Specialising in nature-based tourism as a tool for biodiversity conservation and poverty alleviation, his work over the past decade has focused on a range of tropical developing countries in Africa and Asia.

Caroline is a sustainable and nature-based tourism professional, with a broad range of experience in the public, private and voluntary sectors. She currently runs Wild Scotland, Scotland's nature and wildlife tourism association, and has been instrumental in the development of the wildlife tourism sector in Scotland. Caroline has worked for the Tourism and Environment Forum (TEF) in Scotland which was responsible for the development of the sustainable tourism agenda in Scotland, at policy and business levels, and also has tour operating experience in South America and the UK. Consultancy, teaching and research topics include the economics of whale-watching in Scotland, opportunities for carnivore-watching in Europe and Ethical Tourism in the UK. Clients have included WWF-UK, Tearfund and UK's DEFRA (Dept of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs). She regularly advises on sustainable and wildlife tourism issues in Scotland and her experience includes economic impact studies, partnership building, SME business advice, eco-labels, sustainable tourism policy development, PR & marketing and event management and facilitation.