School of Hospitality Seminar on Qualitative Research in Tourism Studies
The School of Hospitality (SOH) recently held a seminar on “Qualitative Research in Tourism Studies - Fieldwork Reflections from Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands Region” by Dr Alexander Trupp.
Dr Alexander Trupp is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Tourism and Hospitality Management, The University of the South Pacific (Fiji) and editor-in-chief of the Scopus-indexed Austrian Journal of South-East Asian Studies (ASEAS). He previously worked in Mahidol University, Thailand, where he was a lecturer at the Institute for Population and Social Research and visiting professor at the Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia. Alexander holds a PhD in Theoretical and Applied Geography from the University of Vienna, Austria, where he also worked as an assistant professor at the Department of Geography and Regional Research. Alexander has extensive fieldwork experience in the fields of tourism, human geography, and migration in Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, and Europe.
Dr Alexander’s presentation was divided into two parts, where he first shared an overview of the opportunities that qualitative research methods offer to tourism studies by discussing a range of well-established and more recent qualitative tools including interviews, participant observation and netnography. The second part concentrated on his own experience as a tourism researcher in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Island Region where he critically discusses issues and reflections on ethical approvals, positionality and power relations in the field, the importance of openness and flexibility, the role of research assistants and translators, and the need for research dissemination.
Sponsored by The Ritz Carlton and JW Marriott Kuala Lumpur, this seminar series reflects SOH’s commitment to strive for research excellence where faculty members and other academicians will be provided with an excellent opportunity to exchange research expertise and ideas, paving the way for future research collaborations.
All university colleagues are welcome to attend the SOH Research Seminar Series, as well as staff from other university. For details of forthcoming sessions, please contact, Dr Daisy at @email.
