About

Débora Póvoa is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Arts and Culture Studies at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. Her research interests include film tourism, media representation, and the relationships between media, power and place. Following her Bachelor’s in Journalism from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro and Master’s in Media Studies from the University of Amsterdam, her PhD research explored the behind-the-scenes struggles and power dynamics of film tourism in Brazil. In addition, Póvoa serves as a Film Review Editor at ERLACS, the European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies.

Apoorva Nanjangud is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Culture and History at Radboud University Nijmegen. Her expertise lies at the intersection of media and tourism, particularly in the context of India. Her PhD research entitled Finding Bollywood presented a comparative cross-case analysis of Bollywood tourism across transnational and transmedia contexts. Her current postdoctoral project investigates questions at the intersection of digital media, cultural heritage and sustainable tourism. She is a qualitative researcher and specialises in context rich methods such as in-depth interviewing, online ethnography and participant observations.

Paul van de Laar is Professor of Urban History and Head of the History Department at the Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication (ESHCC) of the Erasmus University Rotterdam. Between 2013 and 2020 he was general and artistic director of Museum Rotterdam, the city museum of Rotterdam, and developed great expertise in the heritage of diversity. His research focuses on comparative port city history and migration history. He was one of the principal investigators associated with the HERA Joint Research Programme entitled ‘Public Spaces: Culture and Integration in Europe’ (HERA JRP PS, 2017-2023).

Toon van Meijl is Professor and Chair of Cultural Anthropology and Director of the Centre for Pacific and Asian Studies at Radboud University Nijmegen. His research mainly concentrates on issues of cultural identity and the self, particularly among young people in multicultural societies and on socio-political questions emerging from the debate about property rights, including cultural property rights, especially of the Maori, the Indigenous population of Aotearoa New Zealand. He has published widely, among other things, on the popularization of cultural traditions and the politicization of cultural heritage in the Pacific.

Emmanuel Akwasi Adu-Ampong is Assistant Professor in Cultural Geography at Wageningen University & Research. He works at the intersection of cultural geography, critical tourism studies, critical heritage studies and cultural memory studies. His current research is a Dutch National Research Council (NWO) funded Veni project entitled 'The Embodied Absence of the Past: Slavery, Heritage and Tourism in the Ghana-Suriname-Netherlands Triangle'. He is an Editor-in-Chief of the Tourism Planning and Development Journal and Senior Research Associate at the School of Tourism and Hospitality, University of Johannesburg, South Africa.

Saskia Kagchèl is the Film Commissioner of the city of Rotterdam, the Netherlands. After her studies Communication & Marketing at Ichthus University of Applied Sciences and European Studies at Maastricht University, she soon started to work at the Rotterdam Film and Media Office (then: Rotterdam Fund for Film and Audivisual Media), first as Assistent Film Commissioner and since 2013 as Film Commissioner. In addition, she previously served as the Chair of the Vakgroep Crewbelangen of FNV/Kiem, a trade union for Dutch creatives, and as representative of the FNV Member Parliament of the media and cultural sector.

Jordi Arcos Pumarola is the Research Director at CETT Barcelona School of Tourism, Hospitality and Gastronomy, Spain. Following his PhD in Education from the University of Lleida, which focused on the study of the development and educative potential of literary tourism, his current research focuses on the relationship between tourism and intangible cultural expressions such as literature. His academic output includes more than 25 publications comprising journal articles and book chapters, alongside the participation in more than 30 academic conferences. In addition, Arcos Pumarola is the Editor of the Tourism and Heritage Journal.

Marjorie Galas serves as the Senior Director of Members & Education at the Association of Film Commissioners International (AFCI), the only global non-profit professional organization representing city, state, regional, provincial and national film commission members on six continents. She is involved in supporting the member body, overseeing the course content of AFCI University, and managing partnerships that benefit AFCI’s connections with the production community. Prior to joining AFCI, Galas was an Editor at Variety 411, where she was responsible for the content on all Variety 411 entities.

Sean (Sangkyun) Kim is Associate Professor of Tourism and Creative Industries at the School of Business and Law in Edith Cowan University in in Joondalup, Australia. He is a prominent scholar in the field of film tourism. His work is international and interdisciplinary at the boundaries of social psychology, cultural studies, media studies, geography, and tourism. He is Co-editor of Film Tourism in Asia: Evolution, Transformation and Trajectory (2018) and Associate Editor of the Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research. In addition, he sits on the editorial boards of International Journal of Tourism Research and Tourism Management Perspectives.

Christine Lundberg is a Professor of Tourism Management at the Norwegian School of Hotel Management, University of Stavanger, Norway. She obtained a PhD in Business Administration from the School of Business, Economics and Law at Gothenburg University, Sweden in 2010 and in the same year co-founded POPCULTOUR, an international research network researching tourism and events in the wake of popular culture expressions such as films, TV shows, literature, and music. She has published in many journals ands, since 2020, acts as the Co-Chief Editor of the Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism.

Michael Moffett is the Director of PSN, a network of top-tier production service companies that facilitates overseas filming of features, TV, and commercials in more than 100 countries. Producers at studios, streamers, production houses, agencies, and brands all tap into the local knowledge he puts at their fingertips to determine where best to film and whom to trust to execute location filming and secure local film incentives. Moffett, a Los Angeles native who has been living in Spain for three decades, is as keenly aware of the film tourism surge as he is of the need to implement sustainable approaches for film and tourism stakeholders.

Keith Nurse, a dual British/Trinidad and Tobago national, is the President of the College of Science Technology and Applied Arts of Trinidad and Tobago. He has previously worked as a researcher and consultant to governments and international and regional organizations in a wide range of areas, including the creative industries, tourism, migration and sustainable development. Nurse serves on the executive bureau of the UN Committee for Development Policy as well as the Hemispheric Programme Advisory Committee of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation in Agriculture, where he advises on trade policy and export diversification.

Mimi Sheller is the Inaugural Dean of The Global School at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. From 2009-2021 she was Professor of Sociology and Founding Director of the Center for Mobilities Research and Policy at Drexel University, Philadelphia. She has authored more than 125 articles and chapters, and has written 6 books, of which Aluminum Dreams (2014), Mobility Justice (2018), and Island Futures (2020) are the most recent. She is also Co-editor of many books, including Tourism Mobilities (2004) and Mobility and Locative Media (2014), the Founding Co-editor of Mobilities, and Associate Editor of Transfers: Interdisciplinary Journal of Mobility Studies.

Shuimo Trust Dohyee is an environmentalist, climate activist, documentary filmmaker, and freelance journalist based in Cameroon. He holds a BSc in Journalism from the University of Buea, Cameroon, and is currently pursuing his Master's degree in Environmental Management at the same institution. He has previously served as the Communications Lead for the Environment and Rural Development Foundation (ERuDeF), one of Cameroon's leading conservation organizations. In addition, he is a member of Climate Clock Cameroon and fellow of Nature, Environment, and Wildlife Filmmaker (NEWF).

Rodanthi Tzanelli is Associate Professor of Cultural Sociology and Director of the Mobilities Area in the Bauman Institute at the University of Leeds, UK. She is a social and cultural theorist of mobility with reference to the representational contexts of current crises. Tzanelli has published numerous articles and chapters, as well as 16 monographs, including The New Spirit of Hospitality: Designing Tourism Futures in Post-Truth Worlds (2023). In addition, she serves on the RC50 executive board of the International Sociological Association and editorial board of Hospitality & Society, and is critical reviews editor for Tourism, Culture & Communication.