Eventlist

Lecturers: Professor Marianna Sigala
Entry: FREE

Synopsis

Tourism is a highly dynamic industry and change is the only constant variable.

Intensified global competition, unpredictable crises, changing consumer demands and profiles, innovative tourism products and emerging new destinations are only some of the challenges currently faced by tourism destinations.

Greece as a destination is not excluded from these global trends. The presentation starts by discussing tourism as a phenomenon and investigating its evolution as an important activity satisfying human needs. The discussion aims to unravel the type of tourism experiences currently sought by contemporary tourists as well as the resources and the capabilities that tourism destinations need to develop for developing competitive tourism offerings, building a compelling destination image and satisfying the modern tourists.

These arguments are then used for benchmarking and investigating the readiness of Greece to exploit its natural, cultural and human resources for developing sustainable tourism and regional development.

Examples of best and bad practices of various forms of tourism (e.g. wine, gastronomy and nature-based tourism) in Greece will be shown for discussing the challenges and the opportunities faced by Greek tourism firms, organisations and destinations.

Bio

Marianna Sigala is Professor at the University of South Australia and Director of the Centre for Tourism & Leisure Management.

Prior to her current position she has been an academic staff at the Universities of Strathclyde and Westminster in the UK, and the University of the Aegean (Greece). She also has professional hospitality industry experience. Her interests include service management, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in tourism and hospitality, and e-learning.

She has published six books and her work has also been published in several academic journals, books and international conferences.

She is currently the editor of the Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Cases, co-editor of the Journal of Service Theory & Practice and the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Management. She is a past President of EuroCHRIE and a past member of the executive board of CHRIE.

She currently serves at the executive boards of IFITT and CAUTHE.  In 2016, she has been awarded the prestigious EuroCHRIE Presidents' Award for her lifetime contributions and achievements to tourism and hospitality education.

Sponsors

We'd like to thank the following donors: Ithacan Philanthropic Society.

During the course of the year considerable expenses are incurred in staging the seminars. In order to mitigate these costs individuals or organisations are invited to donate against a lecture of their choice.

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