Browse our team of leading tourism experts
The Griffith Institute for Tourism brings together research staff across a broad range of specialty areas including planning, marketing, property and investment, technology, architecture, economics, climate change and more.
To find out more about our staff and academic members’ individual research strengths and research supervision, follow the links to their Griffith Expert profiles.
Professor Sarah Gardiner
Director
Areas of expertise:
Destination marketing and development, Consumer behaviour and market analysis, tourism, economic and event development strategies.
Professor Leonie Lockstone-Binney
Deputy Director
Area of expertise:
Volunteering, contextualised to event and tourism setting.
Professor Daniel Gschwind
Professor of Practice
Areas of expertise:
Tourism economy, relationship management and stakeholder engagement.
Research leaders
Researchers
Professor Susanne Becken
Professor of Sustainable Tourism, Griffith Institute for Tourism
Andrew Buckwell
Research Fellow. Non-market valuation of ecosystem services, social benefit-cost analysis, discourse analysis with Q-method and climate change adaptation.
Professor Francois Carrillat
Event sponsorships, sports marketing and advertising, celebrity endorsement/influencers.
Dr Lee-Yun Chiang
Housing policy, political economy and social change.
Professor Basak Denizci Guillet
Revenue management and its implementation in global hospitality and tourism organisations
Associate Professor Jason Doyle
Sport and event consumer behaviour, strategic marketing and branding, and the impact of consumption on social-psychological well-being.
Professor Kevin Filo
Synergy between sport and charity, sport events, and community sport and fundraising.
Professor Christopher Fleming
Economic, environmental and social impact assessment, project and/or policy evaluation, non-market valuation, survey design and implementation, empirical analysis of determinants of subjective wellbeing.
Associate Professor Patrick Fong
Environmental discourse and policy learning, university-industry technology transfer, social networks and knowledge sharing, storytelling, strategic knowledge management.
Dr Maria Golubovskaya
Workforce, youth employment, service worker wellbeing and mixed methods.
Professor Louise Gustafsson
Rehabilitation and therapy, aged care, disability, public health and health services.
Dr Yawei Jiang
Risk, Crisis and Disaster Reduction and Management, Organisational/Employee Recovery, Adaptation and Resilience, Organisation Dynamic Capabilities and Resources, Emotion Studies Using Psycho-physiological Measures
Dr Xin (Cathy) Jin
Event management, convention tourism and destination marketing.
Dr Millicent Kennelly
Stakeholder engagement and collaboration in event management, event leveraging strategies and sport event management.
Dr Haroon Iqbal Maseeh
Consumer behaviour, consumer privacy, digital marketing, hospitality and tourism
Associate Professor Lee Morgenbesser
Authoritarian politics, international election observation tourists and sportswashing.
Professor Brent Moyle
Sustainable tourism as a catalyst for regenerating remote communities
Dr Athula Naranpanawa
Computable general equilibrium modeling, environmental and resource economics and development economics.
Dr Mai Nguyen
Artificial intelligence, transformative consumer research, pro-environmental behaviour changes and knowledge management/sharing.
Dr Rawan Nimri
Consumerism and behavior change, pro-environmental communication and hospitality employment relations.
Associate Professor Gavin Northey
Advertising, consumer psychology, consumer decision making and emotion.
Professor Juliet Pietsch
Migration politics and political behaviour.
Professor Kylie Pitt
Population dynamics of jellyfishes from local to global scales, their responses to changing ocean conditions, and their interactions with people and coastal industries.
Professor Jamie Ranse
Public health, emergency and in-event health services for mass gatherings.
Dr Raymond Rastegar
Justice, sustainability transitions, and environmental conservation.
Professor Sacha Reid
Event stakeholder management, community development and planning, and real estate and property development.
Dr Aimee Riedel
Consumer vulnerability, digital services and inclusive employment
Dr Bojana Spasojevic Sijacki
Tourism and air transport management, stakeholder engagement, air route development and passenger experiences.
Dr Sara Thaichon
Services marketing, marketing research, consumer behaviour and relationship marketing.
Professor Scott Weaven
Relationship marketing, digital commerce and franchise systems
Associate Professor Elaine Yang
Gender studies, Asian tourism, tourism geography, tourist risk perception and qualitative research methods.
Dr Zara Zarezadeh
Technology and social change in tourism, women’s and migrant empowerment, digital engagement and consumer behaviour, tourism marketing and education.
Research Fellows
Dr Abraham Leung
Tourist mobility and travel behaviour, mobility as a service, tourist dispersal, regional and urban tourism, low-carbon transport
Dr Olivier Oren
Customer behaviours in hospitality settings, Digital influences on traditional social interactions, Workforce dynamics in hospitality settings, Experience design for food and beverage operations.
Dr Lakshi Senevirathna
Inclusive, community-driven strategies for event and tourism planning, with a focus on engaging host communities in meaningful decision-making.
Dr Ross Westoby
International development, sustainable livelihoods and climate change adaptation.
Adjunct members
- Adjunct Fellow Emily Chen
- Adjunct Professor Karine Dupre
- Adjunct Associate Professor Sebastian Filep
- Adjunct Professor Leo Jago OA
- Adjunct Senior Lecturer Laura Lesar
- Adjunct Professor Gui Lohmann
- Adjunct Professor Nigel Morgan
- Adjunct Professor Robin Nunkoo
- Adjunct Associate Professor Hera Oktadiana
- Adjunct Professor Richard Robinson
- Adjunct Fellow Sera Vada
- Adjunct Fellow Christopher Warren
- Adjunct Industry Fellow Justin Wastnage
- Adjunct Professor Jeff Wilks
- Adjunct Lecturer Thomas Zhu
Advisory Board
The Advisory Board aims to meet four times a year to support the Director, staff and researchers in achieving the goals of the University and the mission of the Griffith Institute for Tourism. The Board provides strategic advice to the Institute regarding research profile, research activities, strategic direction, ways to forge partnerships in the tourism sector and improve its links with industry and government.
Current Advisory Board members
- Liz Savage (Chair) Non-Executive Director of Intrepid Travel
- Rhonda Appo, First Nations tourism expert
- Daniel Gschwind, Professor of Practice, Griffith University
- Siggi Gudergan, Professor of Strategy, James Cook University
- Avril Harris, Executive Director Events, Experience Gold Coast
- Fiona Hood, Head of Strategy, Brisbane Airport
- Jan Hutton, CEO, Australian Tourism Data Warehouse
- Stewart Moore, CEO and Founder, EarthCheck