Tourism in Development: Reflective Essays

Peter Dieke is Visiting Professor of Tourism at Makerere University Business School, Kampala, Uganda. He has held prior academic positions at a number of institutions including the University of Nigeria, University of Strathclyde (UK), Emirates Academy of Hospitality Management, Dubai (UAE), and George Mason University, Virginia (USA). He completed his undergraduate education at the University of Nigeria in 1975, a master's degree at the University of Massachusetts in 1981 prior to his pursuit of a doctoral degree in the field of tourism development at the University of Strathclyde in 1988. Professor Carson L. Jenkins was his doctoral research degree supervisor at Strathclyde. His principal research interest is in the developmental aspects of tourism, focusing on policy, planning and implementation strategies for the developing world, with a regional interest in sub-Saharan Africa. He has published widely in these areas. He has also advised governments and undertaken assignments for several international organizations, most notably the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP); UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO); United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO); UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA); the British Council; the African Union etc

Brian King is head of the Department of Recreation, Park and Tourism Sciences in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Texas A&M University. Brian was previously Professor and Associate Dean in the School of Hotel and Tourism Management at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He completed his MSc in Tourism at the Scottish Hotel School under the supervision of Professor Kit Jenkins and returned to the School as a lecturer after spending time in the tourism industry. He has published books and articles on tourism marketing, integrated resorts, VFR travel and Asia-Pacific tourism. He is Co-editor-in-chief of Tourism, Culture and Communication.

Richard Sharpley is Professor of Tourism and Development at the University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK. He has previously held positions at a number of other institutions, including the University of Northumbria (Reader in Tourism) and the University of Lincoln, where he was professor of Tourism and Head of Department, Tourism and Recreation Management. He is co-editor of the journal Tourism Planning & Development, a resource editor for Annals of Tourism Research and a member of the editorial boards of a number of other tourism journals. His principal research interests are within the fields of tourism and development, island tourism, rural tourism and the sociology of tourism and his books include Tourism and Development: Concepts and Issues (2002, with David Telfer) Tourism and Development in the Developing World (2008, with David Telfer), Tourism, Tourists and Society, 4th Edition (2008); The Darker Side of Travel; The Theory and Practice of Dark Tourism (2009, with Philip Stone); Tourism, Development and Environment: Beyond Sustainability (2009); and Tourist Experience: Contemporary Perspectives (2011, with Philip Stone). A further collection on tourist experiences, The Contemporary Tourist Experience: Concepts & Consequences, was published in 2012, and a second edition of Tourism and Development: Concepts and Issues, was published in 2015.

Richard Butler was educated at Nottingham University and the University of Glasgow (PhD Geography 1973), and spent thirty years at the University of Western Ontario in Canada as Professor and Chairman of the Department of Geography, and then the University of Surrey, where he was Professor of Tourism from 1997 to 2005. He is currently Emeritus Professor of International Tourism in the Strathclyde Business School, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. He has published a large number of journal articles, fourteen books on tourism and many chapters in other books. His fields of interest are the development process of tourist destinations the impacts of tourism, carrying capacity and sustainability, and tourism in remote areas and islands.

Shaun Mann is a Senior Tourism Development Specialist with the World Bank Group in Washington, DC. He started his career in tourism in 1990 in the private sector as a tour operator and lodge developer in his home country of Uganda. In 1997 he joined Uganda Tourism Board overseeing the growth of Uganda's diverse tourism offer. He raised finances on behalf of the government for a range of sources for product and market development activities and over the course of six years saw international tourism grow by 300%. In 2003 Shaun left Uganda to complete a Master in Tourism Administration from George Washington University and in 2005 Shaun joined the World Bank Group. Since then he was worked on tourism development projects and provided advice to more than 40 countries and was instrumental in positioning tourism as a key development sector within the World Bank. Since 2019 and the outbreak of the Covid pandemic, when the economic, environmental and social vulnerabilities of tourism were fully exposed, Shaun has focused on helping countries with policies around tourism resilience and sustainability.