Welcome to “Meet the Visiting Professor”, a section dedicated to introducing to you our Visiting Professors, where you will have the opportunity to get to know them, and find out how they engage with Edinburgh Napier University, and specifically with the Tourism Research Centre (TRC).
Today, Dr. Alan Fyall talks about his career, how he started collaborating with TRC, and more specifically what he hopes to achieve in the future. And if you are a football fan, then you might understand his obsession with Southampton Football Club!
Originally from Edinburgh, I grew up in Southampton and was lucky to travel widely due to my parent’s desire to provide us with the best vacations they could afford. These early travel experiences, most notably to France, Spain and the USA, created a fascination with international travel and a thirst for discovery of new places. I have been fortunate to visit around 50 countries around the world to date with each one offering different insights and experiences that to varying degrees have shaped my research and engagement with the tourism industry. Strangely perhaps, I am not a great pre-planner for trips as I like to simply “walk the destination” and discover what the destination has to offer before being overly influenced by travel writers! My favorite destination remains France with Turkmenistan definitely the weirdest place I’ve ever visited! As well as travel, my other “obsession” is football where I am a huge supporter of Southampton Football Club, an experience which is not always positive!
Due to Edinburgh being my place of birth, and having worked at Edinburgh Napier University between 1997-2000, I have always been committed to helping colleagues here as much as I can. Over the years I have established a deep friendship with Dr. Anna Leask, among others, and have published many journal articles and books with ENU faculty. Edinburgh is such a fantastic place to visit, live and study while its history and heritage offers a great contrast to my home city of Orlando, Florida with its world-leading theme parks and attractions.
For the future, I hope to contribute to the development and expansion of the Destination Leaders Program, possibly national and international and serve as a “critical friend” and develop training to enhance academic authorship and external grant submissions for faculty, and training for current and future doctoral students in research methods, and early career development. I would also like to support and develop specific funding opportunities that span destination management, accessible and inclusive tourism, sustainability and destination/community resilience while teach students at the undergraduate and graduate levels in destination management and marketing and provide connections to his networks across the world.