Who is involved?
Alumni a list of all those who have taken the Masters in Responsible Tourism Management at Leeds Metropolitan and its predecessors at Greenwich University and Kent.
You can read about the activities of some of our Alumni in RTNotesfromtheField
Advisory Panel
John de Vial (chair) was born in to tourism, the Son of a Spanish tourism father and English mother. John studied Engineering, returning to tourism in 1980. He has worked for ILG; the FTO; Thomson; TUI; MyTravel; Thomas Cook and ABTA. John recruited the first Responsible Tourism Manager at Thomson. He was part of the team working on the formation of The Travel Foundation, where he is now a Trustee. He created the MyTravel Responsible Tourism Manager role and founded the Sustainability team at Thomas Cook as Group Director of Quality, Safety and Sustainability. Joining ABTA in 2009, he formed the ABTA Destinations and Sustainability team. He led on the merger of IFTO and ECTAA, creating of the first European level Destinations and Sustainability Committee within the European association. He is a Trustee of ABTA Lifeline, ABTA’s own charity and the Chair of the Advisory Committee of the ICRT. John is one of the judges of the WTM Responsible Tourism Awards.
Stephen Farrant joined the International Business Leaders Forum as Director of the International Tourism Partnership in March 2009. The ITP is the voice for environmental and social responsibility in the global hotel sector. Key programmes include Green Hotelier and the Youth Career Initiative, the Hotel Carbon Measurement Initiative and a working group on human trafficking in the global hotel sector. Steve has worked as a member of the UK Sustainable Development Commission’s Advisory Panel, and is a qualified Executive Coach.
Ruth Holroyd, Group Head of Sustainability at Thomas Cook, has a degree in management from the University of Leeds and a postgraduate certificate in sustainable business from Cambridge University. She leads the sustainability team for the Thomas Cook Group and is responsible for relationships with key stakeholders. Development of the sustainability strategy and its Group-wide implementation are major components of Ruth’s role. Previously Ruth worked in marketing and web operations at MyTravel. She was promoted to Responsible Tourism Manager in 2005, and was selected as Thomas Cook Group’s Head of Sustainability when the companies merged in 2007
Nikki White joined ABTA (www.abta.co.uk) as Head of Destinations and Sustainability in October 2009. Nikki has gained an impressive grasp of travel and tourism strategy over her years as Head of Strategy and Development at travel and leisure marketing experts Fox Kalomaski. Here she worked with a number of destinations as well as specialist agents, tour operators and airlines devising a range of strategic policies. Nikki’s expertise in sustainable tourism has recently been enhanced by her completion of a Masters degree in Sustainable Development. Nikki is Head of Destinations and Sustainability at ABTA which includes responsibility for destination government liaison, sustainability, operations, health and safety and crisis management in destinations.
Associates
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.
Dr Susanne Becken is an Associate Professor at Lincoln University, New Zealand, and Director of the Land Environment and People (LEaP) Research Centre. Susanne is currently leading two government funded programmes on ‘Tourism and Oil’ and ‘Preparing the Tourism Sector for Climate Change’.Susanne is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Sustainable Tourism and the International Tourism Review, is a Resource Editor for Annals of Tourism Research, and represents Asia-Pacific on the World Meteorological Organisation’s Expert Team on Climate and Tourism. She acted as a contributing author to the Fourth IPCC Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change and she was an invited member of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation delegation at the UNFCCC conference in Bali.
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.
Based in Kathmandu Nepal with over 35 years experience in the sector, Lisa Choegyal is an authority on planning, operating and marketing tourism, particularly pro-poor responsible tourism. With TRC Tourism (formerly Tourism Resource Consultants) of Wellington, New Zealand she has undertaken consultancy roles using tourism for development though out the Asia Pacific region with international agencies, NGOs and private sector clients. With a background in the private sector, Lisa worked for over 20 years with the Tiger Mountain Group Nepal, one of Asia’s foremost nature and adventure tourism pioneers with operations such as Tiger Tops lodges in Chitwan and Bardia National Parks, and Mountain Travel Nepal, the first trekking and mountaineering company in the Himalaya. She is currently still associated as director of Tiger Mountain Pokhara Lodge. Lisa retains strong networks of industry contacts and has worked on related areas of environmental preservation, conservation awareness, and community, government and media liaison. She serves on a number of Boards for Nepal, UK and USA not-for-profit organisations. She is a writer, photographer, editor of travel and guidebooks and is widely experienced in production liaison and location management for documentary and feature films. Since 2010, Lisa is New Zealand Honorary Consul to Nepal.
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.
Dr. Janet Cochrane has worked in tourism, development and conservation for over 30 years, including 8 years in Indonesia, several years as tour leader and organiser in South East Asia, and 5 years with the activity tour operator Inntravel. She joined Leeds Met in 2004 and is Course Leader for the MSc in Responsible Tourism Management in the School of Events, Tourism and Hospitality. She undertakes academic research, and lecturing and supervision at higher levels in planning, management and marketing of tourism in rural and protected areas, community-based tourism and equestrian tourism. Her consultancy and research work is through the International Centre for Research in Events, Tourism and Hospitality, and she has contributed numerous journal articles and book chapters as well as editing a major work on Asian tourism entitled ‘Asian Tourism: Growth and Change’
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. Xavier undertakes research projects and consultancies through the International Centre for Research in Events, Tourism and Hospitality at Leeds Metropolitan University For further information please visit www.xavierfont.info
Justin Francis, Chief Executive and Co-Founder with Harold Goodwin of ResponsibleTravel.com. Justin worked in advertising and marketing with J.Walter Thompson and The Body Shop before setting up responsibletravel.com with Harold Goodwin in 2001. He is a trustee of the Government’s new Foundation for Sustainable Tourism and has carried out consultancy work for ABTA and AITO. Justin has a passion for wildlife and Africa and spent a year travelling independently from Kenya to South Africa (with a tent and some luck).
Professor Harold Goodwin researches on tourism, local economic development and poverty reduction, conservation and responsible tourism and teaches Masters and PhD students as well as working with the industry, local communities, governments, and conservationists. Harold also undertakes consultancy and evaluations for companies, NGOs, governments, and international organisations through the International Centre for Research in Events, Tourism and Hospitality at Leeds Metropolitan University. Harold is an advisor to the World Travel Market on World Responsible Tourism Day; chair of the Advisory Panel of the International Tourism Partnership (part of the International Business Leaders Forum) and Chair of the Judges for the annual Virgin Holidays Responsible Tourism Awards. He is an Expert Advisor to ABTA, the UK’s Travel Association, on Sustainable Tourism and to UNEP’s Global Partnership for Sustainable Tourism. For further information please visit www.haroldgoodwin.info
Nicole Haüsler 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. 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. She recently published Responsible Hospitality, with Paulina Bohdanowicz.
Walter Jamieson is presently Director of the Service Innovation Program within the College of Innovation at Thammasat University, and Sustainable Tourism Planning and Development Specialist with AECOM Singapore Pte. Ltd. Additionally he is Distinguished Academic at Republic Polytechnic in Singapore and Distinguished Fellow in Urban Design in the Faculty of Architecture and Planning at Thammasat. Formerly Dean of the School of Travel Industry Management at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa. His consultancy activities include assignments with the World Tourism Organization, ESCAP and UNESCO. He has been Director of Research and Outreach Center at the University of Calgary. As a team leader and a team member he has participated in over 150 international research and consultancy projects. He has published and presented widely and is solely or jointly responsible for over 250 publications, papers, presentations and outreach lectures.
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.
Ross A. Klein is an international authority on the cruise ship industry. His interests and writing includes environmental issues; labour conditions on cruise ships; economic relationships between the cruise industry and ports; socio-cultural impacts of cruise tourism on cruise destinations; sexual assaults and other crime on cruise ships; and issues around illness, liability and the business model of cruise tourism. Ross has written four books on the cruise industry, six reports for NGOs and more than a dozen book chapters and journal articles. In addition, he is frequently invited to speak at conferences and community events and consults with community groups and grassroots organizations worldwide. He is a professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland (teaching research methods in a School of Social Work) and is online at www.cruisejunkie.com and www.cruiseresearch.org.
Lucy McCombes is a community development professional with varied experience in urban regeneration in the UK, and overseas in Mali, The Gambia, India and Jamaica. This has included working for the Plymouth New Deal for Communities, PLB Consulting Ltd (natural and cultural heritage specialists), the Association of Small-Scale Enterprises in Tourism (ASSET) in The Gambia, Refugee Action and development NGOs in Mali. She has an academic background in Social Anthropology of Development (MA) having studied at the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London) in 1999, as well as having completed the MSc in Responsible Tourism Management in 2007 at the University of Greenwich. Her research interests are in the social impacts of tourism and managing host-guest interaction. Lucy has a range of skills in consultancy, community participation and capacity building, evaluations, project management and qualitative research methods. Lucy contributes to to consultancy, teaching and research activities for the School of Events, Tourism and Hospitality and the International Centre for Research in Events, Tourism and Hospitality.
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 Director of the Welsh Environment Hub at Bangor University .
Dr Davina Stanfordhas been involved in more than 30 consultancy projects over the last 5 years, primarily focussing on best practice in destination management. She has worked for a range of clients and stakeholders including destination management organisations, local authorities, national and international agencies (e.g. Northwest Development Agency, Natural England, UNEP and UNWTO) small businesses and local community groups. Davina was a Commonwealth Scholar, undertaking doctoral research at Victoria University of Wellington. Her PhD research looked broadly at issues of tourism behaviour and visitor stewardship in New Zealand and identified influences and constraints on responsible tourism in this context. Her research and consultancy work is as part of the International Centre for Research in Events, Tourism and Hospitality.
Dr Andreas Walmsley currently teaches business management at York St John Business School with an emphasis on Corporate Social Responsibility and Human Resources Management. Andreas’s background is in tourism having gained a degree in Tourism Management from University of Plymouth before moving to Leeds Metropolitan University to undertake a PhD on tourism employment. During this time Andreas worked as a research assistant and consultant on numerous tourism and human resources management-related projects. Andreas has published book chapters, journal articles and occasional papers with Harold Goodwin and Xavier Font on the themes of CSR and Responsible Aviation. He continues to research and provide consultancy in the area of Human Resources Management and Responsible Tourism.
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 International. 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 Warburton 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 . 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.
Heidi Van Der Watt 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.
Dr Simon Woodward is an experienced tourism and heritage industry consultant whose background includes working with one of the “Big Four” accountancy practices, and also spending time as a research scholar at one of Scandinavia’s oldest universities. Between 1996 and 2008 Simon was a Director of PLB Consulting Ltd, providing strategic planning, business planning and related services to the cultural and natural heritage sectors. Simon has an excellent understanding of the environmental impacts of tourism and of community involvement in sustainable leisure and tourism projects. He sits on the ICOMOS UK Cultural Tourism Committee and is a member of the Dean’s Development Committee at Durham Cathedral. He has worked throughout the UK and in Southern and East Africa, Scandinavia, Western Europe, South Asia, the USA and the Middle East. Between 2006 and 2008 he led a multi-disciplinary team preparing master plans for the regeneration of four historic towns on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Coast. His research and consultancy work is through the International Centre for Research in Events, Tourism and Hospitality at Leeds Metropolitan University.
