Prof. Geoffrey Wall from the School of Environment at University of Waterloo was invited to visit the School of Management at Shandong University on 3-6 April, and gave the teachers and students at the Department of Tourism Management a lecture entitled: Tourism, Community, and Participation. Prof. Song Zhenchun, the Deputy Director of the Department of Tourism Management chaired this academic event.

In his lecture, through comparative studies of two cases of the Italian island of Sardinia and China's Taiwan, Prof. Wall noted the necessity and importance of community participation for tourism sustainability, and presented effective approaches to good practice.

He pointed out that, under different management systems and socio-cultural contexts, the operation model of community participation in tourism as well as the levels of participation (benefit - sharing vs. decision - making) might vary. Furthermore, he also stressed that both resource and tourism management professionals and researchers should actively explore approaches of community participation that are most suitable to their own economic and socio-cultural circumstances.

Prof. Wall also had discussions with teachers and students

at the Department of Tourism Management, centering on academic issues relating to resource conservation, tourism development and community participation.

Prof. Wall is a world renowned tourism expert, exploring the implications of tourism of different types for destination areas with varying characteristics. He is also the former President of the International Tourism Research Association, Honorary Professor of Nanjing University, Distinguished Experts and Visiting Scholar of the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography at Chinese Academy of Sciences, as well as being visiting professor at the University of North London.

He has long been engaged in environmental geography and tourism teaching and research and acted as a consultant in various sectors at home and abroad. What is more, he has either directed or been involved in many tourism and ecological projects in Canada, China, Indonesia as well as several other countries and regions around the world, and has published numerous influential books and a long list of academic papers on important international tourism and environment journals (SSCI).

Written by: Xiang Yixiao

Photo By: Xiang Yixiao, Xiao Ke

Edited by: Lawrence Phillips, Jing Zizhao

Source: School of Management,www.view.sdu.edu.cn