Biographical note

Professor Muzaffer Uysal, PhD. is a provost professor and chair of the Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management - Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Dr. Uysal has extensive experience in the tourism and hospitality field and has conducted workshops and seminars in more than 25 countries. He is a member of the International Academy for the Study of Tourism and the Academy of Leisure Sciences. He has also authored and co-authored a significant number of research articles, monographs, and books. Dr. Uysal has also received over 30 awards, honors, and recognitions. His current research interests focus on tourism development and quality-of-life research in tourism and hospitality settings. Ercan Sirakaya-Turk, PhD, is a Professor of Tourism and the Associate Dean of Research and Graduate Studies in the College of Hospitality, Retail and Sport Management at the University of South Carolina (USC). Before joining USC, Dr Turk worked at Texas A&M and Pennsylvania State Universities. He received his PhD and MS from Clemson University, South Carolina USA. He was the 2007 recipient of US State Department's prestigious Fulbright scholarship to Russia, Saint Petersburg State University of Finance and Economics. Ercan has published a significant number of articles in the area of tourism destination marketing and tourism development in prestigious tourism journals and completed numerous grants/ contracts exceeding one million US dollars. Dr Sirakaya-Turk is the founding-editor and current associate Editor for an online tourism research bulletin (e-Review of Tourism Research). He also serves at editorial boards of numerous journals including Journal of Travel Research, Annals of Tourism Research (as a resource editor), and Tourism Analysis. He teaches tourism economics, marketing and research methods classes.