Sara Dolnicar was born in Ljubljana (Slovenia), grew up in Vienna (Austria) and now lives and works in Brisbane (Australia). She holds university degrees in psychology and business administration.
Sara is an expert on Airbnb and Airbnb regulation, making hotels operate in more environmentally sustainable ways while reducing operating cost, public acceptance of recycled waster and social marketing more generally.
To date, Sara has (co-)authored more than 300 refereed papers and led 16 Australian Research Council (ARC) grants, including the prestigous QEII and Laureate Fellowships.
She won more than 30 awards, including two lifetime achievement awards: The US-based Travel and Tourism Research Association (TTRA) Distinguished Researcher Award (2017) for ground-breaking research that positively impacts the tourism industry, and outstanding service to the tourism research community; and the Slovenian Ambassador of Science 2016, the highest honour the Republic of Slovenia bestows on expatriate Slovenian researchers in recognition of global excellence, impact, and knowledge transfer.
Nancy Gard McGehee is the R.B. Pamplin Professor in Hospitality and Tourism Management, Howard Feiertag Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Pamplin College of Business, Virginia Tech.
Recognised in 2023 as a top 2% scholar according to SCOPUS in Sport, Leisure and Tourism over her career (https://www.elsevier.com/icsr/icsrlab), her research and teaching emphasis has been on innovation in community-centered tourism development, domestically and internationally.
Nancy has received the Virginia Tech Alumni Award for Excellence in International Research, is a Fulbright Specialist Program Awardee, and was cited as an Outstanding Woman in Travel Research by Women in Travel and Tourism International (WITTI).
She is Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Travel Research alongside Professor Jim Petrick of Texas A&M and currently serves on the Travel and Tourism Research Association Board of Directors.
Dr. Alan Fyall is Associate Dean Academic Affairs and Visit Orlando Endowed Chair of Tourism Marketing at the Rosen College of Hospitality Management, University of Central Florida. Alan serves on the Advisory Board of TravelAbility, an organisation dedicated to providing thought leadership in accessible travel, is Founding Editor of the Journal of Destination Marketing & Management (IF: 8.4), an elected Fellow of the International Academy for the Study of Tourism, where he currently serves as Second-Vice-President, and is a former Board Member of the Bournemouth Tourism Management Board (DMO).
Alan has conducted many tourism destination development and management projects for clients in the UK, European Union, Africa, the Caribbean, USA, and Southeast Asia. Clients include the ESRC (UK), Grant Thornton, Ernst & Young, the Commonwealth Secretariat, the Malaysian Government, the Supreme Commission for Tourism and Antiquities (Saudi Arabia), World Travel & Tourism Council and The Ocean Panel. Alan’s current research interests relate to tourism sustainability and resilience with a specific focus on inclusive and accessible destination development and the impacts of tourism and events on resident communities. Alan recently served as one of the lead authors of The Ocean Panel publication “Opportunities for Transforming Coastal and Marine Tourism: Towards Sustainability, Regeneration and Resilience”.
His books include Marketing for Tourism & Hospitality: Collaboration, Technology and Experiences (Abingdon, Routledge), Tourism Principles & Practice (Sixth Edition) (Harlow, Pearson Education) and Tourism Marketing: A Collaborative Approach (Clevedon, Channel View Publications). Alan also sits on the editorial boards of many leading journals while he has supervised over 30 Ph.D. students through to completion (12 as Chair) and served as external examiner for over 40 Ph.D. dissertations in the UK, India, France, South Africa, Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia and New Zealand.
