Contemporary Tourist Behaviour – Yourself and Others as Tourists

Dr. David Bowen gained his first degree in geography from the University of Oxford. His interest in academic study related to tourism started whilst organizing walking tours and acting as curator of the Lewis Glacier on Mt. Kenya. As a result, he studied for an MSc in Tourism at Surrey University and, after joining Oxford Brookes University, completed a PhD entitled "Consumer Satisfaction on Long-Haul Tours."

David Bowen's research interests focus on tourist consumer behavior and research methods. He has recently published on these and other topics in Annals of Tourism Research, Tourism Management, Journal of Travel Research, Service Industries Journal, Journal of Vacation Marketing and the International Journal of Tourism Research.

David has just finished research on two funded projects with colleagues from Oxford Brookes University. First, "Familiar places: tourist well-being and tourism sector consequences" (with Dr. Jackie Clarke) is focussed on the effect that visiting familiar places has on tourists and the tourism industry and is based in two areas of Wales, the Gower Peninsula and the Mawddach Estuary. This research is funded via a British Academy / Leverhulme Small Research Grant (October 2013-September 2015). Second, "Enclave resort tourism in the Maldives: the reality of benefits and non-benefits" (with Shahida Zubair and Professor Levent Altinay) is exploring how enclave resorts compare with non-enclave resorts in relation to economic dependency (especially the effect on local entrepreneurship) and sustainable tourism development (especially the effect on local participation in decision-making and socio-cultural integrity).