Marjon Associate Professor publishes Routledge book

Released: 10.10.18

Plymouth Marjon University Associate Professor Dr Vassilios Ziakas has just had a book published on culture and tourism. Dr Ziakas is the co-editor of the Routledge-issued book and the edition joins the publisher’s high profile series of Handbooks.

Titled, ‘The Routledge Handbook of Popular Culture and Tourism’, the book is co-edited by Dr Ziakas and Christine Lundberg from the University of Surrey.

The pair worked together to produce a book that looks at various forms of popular culture such as cinema, TV, music, literature, sports and heritage. Featuring a mix of theoretical and empirical chapters, the book explores the links between cultural influences and positions tourism within the context of the wider creative economy.

Dr Ziakas, an Associate Professor in Sport Management, explained the thinking behind the book: “It’s a collection of contributions from leading scholars around the world with expertise in a range of disciplines.

“The aim is to provide a comprehensive analysis of the intersection between tourism and popular culture. From this perspective, the volume examines current debates and controversies of tourism in the wake of popular culture phenomena and explores the relationships between popular culture, globalisation, media, tourism and mobility.

“The Handbook offers a cross-disciplinary, cutting-edge review of the nature of popular cultural production and consumption trends; scrutinizing their effects on tourism, place strategies and destination competitiveness.”

Dr Ziakas continued: “This will be a key text for researchers, students and practitioners interested in popular culture-induced tourism such as film, music, heritage or sport.”

The book is the first in a number of initiatives Dr Ziakas wants to run as the Director of the newly-established research cluster at Marjon called ‘Sustainable Sport and Leisure Development’ (SSLD).

“The SSLD cluster aims to advance theory and practice,” said Dr Ziakas.

“The publication of the Handbook is only the first step in a series of inter-disciplinary, forward-looking and socially impactful research activities that we will be carrying out.”

Within the Marjon School of Sport, Health & Wellbeing, the SSLD will be working on a number of schemes with the aim of improving academic standards over the coming years. This includes an international project in partnership with the University of Tennessee on integrating environmental sustainability in sport education. Closer to home, the research group will be undertaking a study examining the responses of County Sport Partnerships in South West England to a recent government sport policy change and how this has affected their organisational capacity and service delivery.

Find out more about Dr Ziakas' newly-published book here. 

Want to know more about studying Sport Management at Marjon? Check out the course page for more information.

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