Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage Management

Dr Razaq Raj is Principal Lecturer for Research and Enterprise in Leeds Business School. He is an internationally renowned academic with extensive experience in teaching, research, leadership and Managements in the UK, Malta, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany, China, Japan and South Korea. He is an Honorary Professor University of Vitez, Bosnia. He has published work on strategic management, economic and financial impacts, cultural festivals and sustainable tourism and religious tourism. He has both organised international conferences and delivered keynote speeches. He has published books on Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage Management and Events Management. He is founding co-editor of the Journal Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage and Series Editor, CABI Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage Book Series and Tourism and Society Book Series. Kevin Griffin is the Senior Lecturer in Tourism in the School of Hospitality Management and Tourism at Technological University Dublin. Kevin Griffin is the chairperson of the Institute for Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage which organises an annual conferences and manages a number of publication projects. He is also Editor-in-Chief for the TU Dublin published International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage which is internationally recognised and ranked with SCOPUS and many other agencies. He is also Series Editor for the Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage Book Series. In more recent times Kevin has established two other international Open Access Journals for which he is also Editor-in-Chief: The International Journal of Tour Guiding Research and the International Journal of Islands Research. - Dr. Silvia Aulet Serrallonga is a professor at the Faculty of Tourism of the University of Girona teaching in the Degree of Tourism and in the Master of Cultural Tourism. Her PhD dissertation was the first in Spain to address the subject of religious tourism. Her research line is cultural tourism, from its conceptualization to its management. In this field her focus is twofold: pilgrimage and religious tourism and gastronomy tourism. She is member of the Editorial Board of the International Journal on Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage. She is also part of the Unitwin UNESCO Chair "Culture Tourism and Development. She has carried several research projects both in the university and as a consultant. She has recently participated in several national and European projects, notably in SPIRIT-Youth (related to the creation of a spiritual tourism proposal trough Europe for young people).
Currently she cooperates with different institutions related to religious tourism, such as Montserrat Monastery, organizing courses and seminars to enhance the performance of tourism stakeholders in sacred spaces. Dolors Vidal-Casellas, PhD, is Dean and a senior lecturer at the Tourism Faculty of the University of Girona. She is Founder of the Official Master in Cultural Tourism, a member of the Contemporary Culture and Art Chair and also member of the research groups 'Contemporary Art Theories' and 'Higher Institute of Tourism Studies' (INSETUR). She is director of the collection 'Turisme cultural' (cultural tourism) by Edicions Vitel?la (http://www.edicionsvitella.com). She joined different cooperation programmes with universities from Algeria, Sao Paolo, Piracicaba (Brazil) and San Martin de Porres (Peru). She is also a member of cultural tourism international networks: Ibertur, Atlas and Unitwin 'Culture, tourisme et developpement' (UNESCO). Her research interests include cultural tourism, religious tourism, history of tourism, heritage management, destination imagery and tourism planning and policies. Alan Clarke currently works at the University of Pannonia, in Hungary and has had a significant role in establishing the English versions of the full undergraduate and Masters programmes. He has a wide range of research and consultancy experience in tourism planning, strategy and sustainable development. He has published widely in sustainable tourism, cultural heritage, community festivals and events, religious tourism and semiotic understandings of these developments. His current research focuses on aspects of governance and stakeholder involvement. He has adopted the Balaton and its cultures as a favourite place, warmed by the sun, refreshed by the waters and challenged to know more about the wines of the region. Agnes Raffay is Head of the Department of Tourism at the University of Pannonia, in Veszprem, Hungary. She has worked for Tourinform in Veszprem and was the inaugural Tourism Referent in the Mayor's Office of the local authority. Her PhD was a study of stakeholder involvement in urban tourism planning and was awarded by the University of Derby in the UK. She has worked around the Balaton for many years, visiting regularly and running training for the DMOs (Destination Management Organizations) in the region. Her research interests and publications focus on destination management, stakeholder involvement, governance and involvement. is editor in chief of International Journal of Safety and Security in Tourism (UP Argentina) and International Journal of Cyber Warfare and Terrorism (IGI-GlobalUS). Besides being Senior Researcher in the Department of Economics at University of Palermo, Argentina, he is a global affiliate of the Tourism Crisis Management Institute (University of Florida, US), the Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies (University of Leeds), The Forge (University of Lancaster and University of Leeds UK) and The International Society for Philosophers, hosted in Sheffield UK. With more than 700 published papers and 25 books, Korstanje was awarded as Outstanding Reviewer 2012, International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment, University of Salford, UK; Outstanding Reviewer 2013, Journal of Place Management and Development, Institute of Place, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK and Reviewer Certificate of Acknowledgement 2014, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management (IJCHM), University of Central Florida, US. Now he co-edits almost 10 specialized journals in such themes as human rights, mobility, tourism and terrorism. Korstanje is subject to biographical records for Marquis Who's Who in the World since 2009. He has been nominated for 5 honorary doctorates for his contribution in the study of the effects of terrorism in tourism. In 2015 he was awarded Visiting Research Fellow at the School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Leeds, UK and the University of La Habana, Cuba. In 2017 he was elected as Foreign Faculty Member of AMIT, Mexican Academy in the study of Tourism, which is the most prominent institution dedicated to tourism research in Mexico. Now he works as an editorial advisory board member of Cambridge Scholar Publishing UK and IGI Global US. Nour Farra-Haddad is a senior researcher, a tourism consultant, an author and she teaches at St-Josef University of Beirut (Lebanon) and at the American University of Science and Technology. She has experience in development and management with a strong business consultancy background and in-depth experience in the Middle East tourism industry. She is a specialist in pilgrimages and religious tourism. She is now managing her own travel consultancy company NEOS. Her credentials include a PhD in religious anthropology, a Masters in anthropology and two BSc degrees in archeology and anthropology. She holds a tourist guide diploma from the Ministry of Tourism and was designated as Vice President of the Lebanese Tour Guides Syndicate. She is also a founding member of the Association for the Development of Pilgrimages and Religious Tourism affiliated to the Maronite Patriarchate in Bkerke.