Description

Xavier Font develops creative methods of sustainable tourism production and consumption for the tourism and hospitality industries. He has conducted around 150 courses for more than 3000 businesses on how to market and communicate sustainability, commissioned by the UNWTO, European Commission, national tourist boards, national parks, industry associations and businesses in over 15 countries, as well as numerous reports to promote pro-sustainable behaviour in tourism businesses for UNEP, UNWTO, UNCTAD, UNDP, VisitEngland, VisitWales, Fáilte Ireland, Fair Trade Tourism South Africa, the Catalan Tourist Board, WWF, Travel Foundation, and others. I has participated in numerous projects, which include writing the feasibility study for the Global Sustainable Tourism Council; the development and operating a single process of accreditation of sustainable tourism certification programmes for VisitEngland, VisitWales, and Northern Ireland Tourist Board; the development of a methodology to improve the project management of sustainable tourism projects based on Prince2; the analysis of the market for sustainable tourism and gap analysis for the Chilean industry to develop a sustainable tourism industry; an advisory role for the Global Partnership for Sustainable Tourism to identify sustainable tourism project evaluation criteria for UNEP; the design and consultation of the European Charter for tourism in protected areas certification criteria and accreditation procedures for Europarc Federation; Monitoring and evaluation of an online marketing tool to promote sustainable development for the International Finance Corporation- World Bank group; the feasibility study for a Fair trade tourism standard and label for the Fair Trade Labelling Organisation; and a sustainable supply chain management demonstration project for European tour operators and certified accommodation suppliers funded by EU LIFE; amongst others. Since September 2019, he is the Principal Investigator for the University of Surrey in a €23.5m Interreg-funded project to reduce winter seasonality in the UK and France by supporting the development of experiential, sustainable tourism offer that improves the economy, contributing to healthy communities and preserves the environment. He contributes to the Global Challenges Research Fund project to reduce water consumption in hotels in the Dominican Republic, in partnership with Aguardio. In 2020 he was contracted by the European Commission to organize the stakeholder consultation for the European Tourism Convention, and to prepare a report to inform EC policy on sustainable tourism measurement methods. Between 2017 and 2020, he delivered a sustainability pledge system for members of the specialist travel association AITO that is more creative and engaging for consumers than traditional sustainability certification approaches, which is providing detailed evidence of the process of sustainability decision-making by businesses.

Elisabeth Kastenholz is an Associate Professor at the Department of Economics, Management, Industrial Engineering and Tourism/ University of Aveiro, where she teaches Tourism and Marketing related subjects and is Coordinator of Tourism Studies. She holds a Ph.D. in Tourism Studies and a degree in “Tourism Management and Planning” from the University of Aveiro/ Portugal, an MBA/ Oporto Business School/ Portugal, and a bachelor in “Public Administration - Specificity Foreign Affairs” from the Fachhochschule des Bundes für Öffentliche Verwaltung/ Bonn/ German Foreign Ministry. She is a member of the Research Unit GOVCOPP (Governance, Competitiveness, and Public Policies), of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Tourismuswissenschaft e.V. and the Portuguese Society of Rural Studies. She has coordinated and participated in several research projects, in the fields of rural, accessible, and senior tourism and cross-border cooperation in tourism. She has also supervised several doctoral and master dissertations in these fields, with a focus on consumer behavior in tourism, the tourist/ destination experience, and sustainable destination marketing and development. Her numerous publications, both in Portuguese and English, reflect these research interests. She is also a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Sustainable Tourism, of Anatolia and Spatial and Organizational Dynamics as well as of the scientific boards of PASOS, ROTUR, Tourism & Management Studies, and RT&D (Journal of Tourism and Development), frequently acting additionally as invited reviewer for journals such as Tourism Management, Annals of Tourism Research, Tourism Economics, Tourism Analysis, Journal of Tourism Planning and Development, the Journal of Ecotourism and as member of the scientific committee of numerous international tourism and marketing conferences. She has supervised numerous Ph.D. and master projects and has also coordinated and participated in numerous local, regional, national, and international research projects, the most important being her coordinating role in the three years (2010-2013) FCT-funded research project "The overall rural tourism experience and sustainable development of local communities” and the on-going FCT project ‘TWINE – Co-creating sustainable Tourism & WINe Experiences in rural areas” (2018-2021).

This session will be recorded and uploaded following the session. Any questions can be written on the discussion board.