Six Laureates of the UN Tourism Ulysses Prize were at the 2026 Biennial Conference of the
Academy, held at the School of Hotel and Tourism Management of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University from 4-6 June.
From left, in the photograph, the attendees were Jigang Bao, Pauline Sheldon, Kaye Chon, David Airey, Larry Dwyer
and Susanne Becken. The other remaining laureates, not attending the conference, are Richard Butler, Erik Cohen,
Jafar Jafari and Geoff Wall.
Tom Baum
Status Change
Tom Baum has retired from the University of Strathclyde after close to 30 years and has
transitioned to the role of Professor Emeritus. He will continue active involvement with research, PhD supervision
and some off-shore teaching. He will also maintain his role of Distinguished Visiting Professor in the University
of Johannesburg and other international collaborative roles.
Susanne Becken
Journal Articles
Becken, S. (2026). Tourism, aid, and climate change: a structural analysis of
climate resilient development potential. Climate and Development, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17565529.2026.2668631
MacAskill, S., Becken, S., Coghlan, A., Warren, C. & Font, X. (2026).
Smart-meter insights into ecolodge guests’ water and energy behaviours in a field quasi-experiment. Journal of
Sustainable Tourism. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2026.2677653
Green, N., Becken, S. & Job, H. (2026). Exploring climate and biodiversity
projects in African biosphere reserves in contributing to sustainability dynamics. Discover Environment,
4(120); https://doi.org/10.1007/s44274-026-00637-z
Chen, Y., Cai, D., Becken, S. & Zhang, G. (2026). Slow travel, deep
healing: Towards value-driven strategies for slow tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 118, 104139.
Events and Conferences
Susanne Becken was an invited guest speaker at the Malta National Tourism conference,
reference:
Becken, S. (2026). Climate and Sustainability. Malta National Tourism
Conference. 12 February, 2026, Malta.
Susanne Becken contributed as a panelist at the ITB in Berlin on regenerative tourism with
Willy LeGrand, Anna Pollock and David Leventhal. Reference is:
Dimitrios Buhalis was appointed as The PolyU Academy for Interdisciplinary Research (PAIR)
Fellow at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China through the PAIR Fellowship Scheme, 2026.
Dimitrios Buhalis was elected as a Senior Fellow EuroMed Academy's Distinguished Fellowship
Program, 2026.
Dimitrios Buhalis was awarded the International Marketing Trends Conference IMTC Life
Contribution Award 2026 in Berlin Germany.
Dimitrios Buhalis crossed 100,000 citations and an h-index of 125 on Google Scholar milestone.
Dimitrios Buhalis was appointed as a sub-panel member for REF 2029, Panel 24: Sport and
Exercise Sciences, Leisure and Tourism
Activities
Dimitrios Buhalis delivered a keynote on Artificial Intelligence for Tourism at the ITB Berlin.
https://www.itb.com/en BERLIN Germany 3-5 March 26
Dimitrios Buhalis coordinated the European Hotel Managers Association conference on
“Transforming Hotel Hospitality for A Thriving Future” 52nd EHMA Annual General Meeting | London, 13-15 March 2026
at the Dorchester
Book
Dimitrios Buhalis completed the book Buhalis, D., Costa,C., Editors, 2026, Tourism Destination
Management: Planning, Marketing and Impacts (A tribute to Professor Christopher Cooper), Goodfellow Publishers,
Oxford
Conferences
Dimitrios Buhalis is going to chair:
MALTA, 24-27 November 2026 Mediterranean Tourism Conference, Research Writing Retreat,
Student
Competition and Forum.
Dimitrios Buhalis is going to be track conference chair of:
MADRID, 16-19 July 2026, Global Fashion Management Conference: Marketing & Management in
the Age of the AI Fashion Transformation, University of Navarra.
TOKYO JAPAN, July 22-25 2027, GMC 2027 Global Marketing Conference: Tourism and Hospitality
Marketing in the AI and Robotic Era Track. https://2027gmc.imweb.me/index
PORTUGAL Portimao, 4–7 Nov 2026, TMCT 2026 — Tourism Management and Computing Technologies
International Conference https://tmct.pt/
MAROCCO Marrakech, 10-13 Nov 2026, The AI Turn in Tourism 7th Marrakech International
Conference on Tourism Research – MICTR 2026 https://easychair.org/cfp/MICTR26
Richard Butler
Journal Articles
Fennell, D. & Butler , R.W.(2025) Perisseuo: The Enduring Myth of Sustainable Tourism,
Tourism and Hospitality,6 (4), 3. https://doi.org/10.3390/tourhosp6040173
Butler, R., & Dodds, R. (2025). An Explanation of Overtourism in Islands. In Briguglio,
L.,
Avellina, M., & Butcher, J. Overtourism in Cities and Small Islands(pp. 135-148).
Routledge.
Scott Cohen
Journal Articles
Qiu, X., Cohen, S. & Skinner, J.(2026). Digital intimacies in motion:
Redefining sex in tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 119, 104206.
Qiu, X., Skinner, J. & Cohen, S. (2026). Volatile desirability in
tourism:
A multi-method intersectional analysis. Annals of Tourism Research, 118, 104170.
David Edgell
Books
The Lucky Wanderer from the Great Plains of America. A recent released memoir by David L.
Edgell, Sr. - now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and elsewhere. This book traces his background and much of his
career in the travel and tourism industry with notable accounts of his special tourism policy contributions to
three U.S. presidents; UNWTO, World Cup 1994, his position as the first Commissioner of Tourism for the U.S.
Virgin Islands, etc. (and he let a brief love story slip into the book that influenced his life on sustainable
tourism issues)
David Edgell co-authored the 4th edition of Tourism Policy and Planning with Jason R. Swanson
(Routledge publisher)
David Edgell wrote the book The Worldly Travelers with Bonnie Kogos. A popular book
about the history and travels of the great worldly travelers and how they changed our lives).
David Edgell has just finished the manuscript for the 4th edition of Managing Sustainable
Tourism (Routledge publisher).
Xavier Font
Project that he is most proud of
Xavier Font has been studying how well-intentioned EU greenwashing legislation may produce
unequal consequences in tourism. Drawing on Real Options Theory, Booking.com data from 82,047 European hotels
and
expert interviews, it finds that sustainability certification is far more accessible to chains, larger hotels
and
higher-category properties. Smaller independent hotels face higher relative costs, weaker access to recognised
schemes and the loss of low-cost signalling routes. As the Empowering Consumers Directive and possible Green
Claims rules tighten verification requirements, regulation may improve claim credibility but also restrict
market
visibility for less-resourced hotels, turning certification into an unintended barrier to fair participation.
Font, X., Gallego, I., & Canovas, J. P. M. (2026). Strategic responses to sustainability
certification under regulatory uncertainty: a real-options perspective. Journal of Sustainable Tourism,
1-29.
Brian King
Journal Articles
Bordbar, Y., Deng, J, King, BEM, Lee, H and Zhang, W. (2026) Bridging Technology and
Nutrition:
A Systematic Review of AI and XR Applications for Nutritional Insights in Restaurants and Foodservice Operations
Nutrients 18 (9), 1364
Büyükçelebi, A, Taheri, B, King BEM and Sengoz, A (2026). From attention to emotion:
neuroscientific approaches in tourism advertising–a systematic review Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes,
1-23
Hussain, Z., Kim, S., & King, BEM. (2025). Are we in the same boat? Multi-stakeholder
perceptions of the impacts of domestic resort tourism and sustainability in a small island developing state.
Tourism Recreation Research, 50(1), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/02508281.2025.2585809
King, B. E. M. (2025). Remembering Keith: Meanderings from Leeds to Australia, Texas, and
then
back again. Tourism Culture & Communication, 25(4), 431–433. https://doi.org/10.3727/194341425X17536604190320
Metin Kozak
Journal Articles
Şen-Küpeli, T., Karaca, O., & Kozak, M. (2026). Music videos as destination marketing
tools: a mixed-method approach based on user-generated content. Current Issues in Tourism, 1–20.
Sedefoglu, B., Genc, L., Kozak, M., & Ayman Oz, N. (2026). Assessing campsites: an
application of GIS, fuzzy-AHP and network analysis. Tourism Recreation Research, 1–20.
Book chapter
Ertaş, M., Kırlar-Can, B., & Kozak, M. (2026). Digital transformation and technological
challenges. In University Management: Challenges, Perspectives and Strategies (pp.60-85), M. Dabic, J. Pavičić,
N.
Stojčić, & R. S.J. Tuninga (eds.), Cheltenham, UK, Edward Elgar.
Events
Metin Kozak recently spent three days in Faro, Portugal, chairing two dynamic panels on the
future of tourism industry and education as part of KIPT CoLAB’s annual activities. The first panel featured
authors whose papers were accepted for the special issue of Current Issues in Tourism. The panel explored the
future of the tourism profession from a variety of diverse research perspectives including the educational
design,
product development and process management. The second panel brought together six industry leaders for a debate
on
technology vs. human touch, focusing on how the industry can evolve alongside technology while remaining a
compelling career choice for the next generation.
Metin Kozak attended the conference titled “Tourism and Hospitality Transformation: Evolving
Travel Paradigms, Eco-Intelligence, and Travel Tech and Artificial Intelligence”, organized by Parul University,
India, 23-25 March 2026, as a "guest of honour" and "invited speaker". Due to the ongoing closure of Middle
Eastern airspace, he delivered his speech "online". In his presentation, which included a summary of the changes
in tourism marketing and competitiveness scales considering developments over the last three decades. He
emphasized how smart technologies may affect consumer behaviour within the context of innovation, and how
experienced crises contribute to countries' efforts to become more resilient.
Scott McCabe
Book
Scott McCabe has a new edition of textbook Marketing Communications in Tourism
and
Hospitality is coming out in August/September 2026. The details are shown in the list below.
Chris Ryan was able to join the IAST conference at HK PolyU and enjoyed meeting old
colleagues,
renewing friendships and meeting new colleagues. Given his forthcoming retirement in March 2028 (being just
semi-retired at present) this was probably his last IAST conference and he wishes the Academy members well for
their personal and institutional futures. Having given a shortened version of his presentation, he was
subsequently able to give a longer and more considered version at the Macau University of Tourism to doctoral
degree students and faculty members that gave rise to several questions but perhaps not so any answers! The
title
of his talk in Macau was "Qualitative Research in the Age of AI: Navigating Complexity, Data and the Synthetic
Turn".
Journal Articles
Pan, Y., Liu, Y., Liu, Z., Ryan, C., & Wang, Y. (2026). Home culture connectedness and
travel anxiety reduction among Chinese outbound tourists. Journal of Destination Marketing &
Management, 41, 101099.
Pan, Y., Liu, Y., Wang, Y., & Ryan, C. (2026). How does global-local identity affect
preference between authentic destination experiences and home culture connectedness? Tourism Management.
117. 105454
Zhou, B., Wu, Y., Yu, H., Xiong, Q., & Ryan, C. (2026). Does expressway congestion affect
tourists' intention for holiday self-drive trips?—Evidence from a mixed-methods study. Acta
Psychologica,
262, 106109.
Pauline Sheldon
Journal Articles
Lin, I. and P. Sheldon (2026) Designing Wellness Hotels of the Future in eds. Assan,
Cavagnaro,
Losekoot & Yeoman, in The Future of Hotels, Multilingual Matters and Channel View Publications 344 pp. DOI:
10.2307/jj.32657596.12\
Sheldon, P. (2025) Regenerative Tourism and Indigenous Values, in eds. Fuste Forne and
Hussein,
In Routledge Handbook on Regenerative Tourism, 680 pp. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003469810
Muzzo Uysal
Journal Articles
Cao, Y., Assaf, A. G., Lee, S., & Uysal, M. (2026). Managerial ability as a moderator of
the curvilinear ESG–Performance relationship. International Journal of Hospitality Management,
139, 104758.
Cinar, S., Sivuk, D., Wang, J., & Uysal, M. (2026). Medical tourism determinants and
satisfaction: A case of Turkiye. Tourism and hospitality management, 32(3), I-XII.
Kadirhan, G., Çavuş, A., & Uysal, M. (2026). Faith tourism in Turkey: place attachment,
quality of life, and length of residency: a two-tiered model testing approach. Current Issues in
Tourism,
1-22.
Seth, D., Sheel, A., Onder, I., & Uysal, M. (2026). Cross-border tourism in North
America:
A hybrid deep learning framework with macroeconomic indicators. Tourism Management, 113,
105320.
Wang, J., Onder, I., Liang, Y., & Uysal, M. (2026). Designing smart menus: A multi-method
exploration of AI integration in hospitality guest experience and operations. International Journal of
Hospitality Management, 139, 104777.
Wang, J., Berbekova, A., & Uysal, M. (2025). Enhancing Competitiveness of SMEs: The Role
of
Sustainability and Quality of Life. In Competitiveness of SMEs in Hospitality and Tourism: A
Multidisciplinary
Approach, edited by F. Okumus, A. E. l P. Brito, A. F. Chim-Miki, and M. I. B. Zapata, Emerald Publishing
Wei, W., Önder, I., & Uysal, M. (2026). The Synergy Between Information and Communication
Technology (ICT) and Destination Performance (DP). Tourism Analysis.
