A full-time professor at four different universities throughout his academic career, he specializes in Management and Strategy, particularly in Logistics and Tourism. His teaching has ranged from Cross-Cultural Management and Business Negotiations to Dispute Solving and International Hospitality Management.

He currently teaches at the Turkish-German University in Istanbul, where his international experience continues to shape his approach:

Different countries, different cultures, different ways of doing business—but good management speaks every language.

Her papers have been selected as the most downloaded, read, and cited articles by top SSCI journals. She has published over 100 articles in globally reputed top-tier SSCI journals and has recently been awarded several research grants related to sustainable tourism technologies. She has served as an associate editor of Journal of Hospitality and Tourism and an editorial board member for 10 more internationally reputed journals. She has secured multiple major research grants exceeding total USD 8 million to date.

She has completed over 100 research projects commissioned by China’s Ministry of Finance, Shandong Provincial Finance Group, Rizhao Finance Group, and numerous enterprises and social organizations. Her horizontal research on the Yiyuan Art Pastoral Complex alone channeled over 2 billion RMB into five remote impoverished villages across 23 square kilometers, transforming them into a national benchmark for art-driven rural development and lifting local incomes twentyfold.

She has published more than 10 monographs and over 30 peer-reviewed articles, with a new trilogy on digital art, cultural tourism, and cultural industry investment and financing forthcoming from Economic Science Press in August 2026. She is a member of TTRA and Vice Chairman of the China Association for Cultural Industry Management.

Prof. Jenkins gained rich experience in research and consultancy projects all over the world and contributed his wisdom to more than 80 countries and regions in tourism policy and development, e.g., Eastern Caribbean, West Indies and Southeast Asia. From 2003–2008, he worked as the Tourism Adviser for the Economic Development and Tourism Promotion Authority, United Arab Emirates, and the Principal and Managing Director for IMI, Luzern, Switzerland.

In the last decade, he has concentrated his research interests in Asia, such as tourism policy and planning and the role of tourism in developing countries.

Dr. Fu’s research operates at the intersection of knowledge management, tourism and hospitality, and higher education governance. Her work focuses on knowledge supply chains, digital innovation in hospitality, destination marketing, and sustainable tourism practices. She has published extensively in peer-reviewed SSCI- and Scopus-indexed journals, co-authored monographs with academic publishers such as Springer, and serves as an active reviewer for top-tier journals, including the Journal of Knowledge Management, Tourism Review, and International Journal of Tourism Cities.

A recognized leader in international academic cooperation, Dr. Fu has spearheaded and managed several European Union-funded grants, including the Erasmus+ Tourism-Zero, Chef Metalab, SHYFTE, Panacea, and A Sustainable e-Tourism projects. She also directs transnational research initiatives across Asia and Europe, co-supervises Ph.D. candidates at Chiang Mai University and the National Institute of Development Administration (Thailand), and frequently delivers invited keynote addresses and guest lectures internationally on destination marketing, sustainable tourism, and global higher education partnerships.

Her previous leadership roles include Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Foreign Studies at Chengdu University, Program Manager of MicroMaster’s Program at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University’s School of Hotel and Tourism Management, and Vice Rector (part-time) at Chengdu Gingko College of Hospitality Management.

Driven by her passion for health and well-being, she has also pursued extensive training, becoming a certified yoga master instructor, sound healing therapist, Reiki healer, and forest bathing researcher and practitioner. Her dedication highlights her commitment to promoting wellness tourism activities, particularly in the Southeast Asia region.

Her core research covers cultural and tourism industry management, conservation and revitalization of cultural heritage, tourism destination management, and digital governance. She has presided over three national-level research projects, alongside ten provincial research projects. She has published more than 50 peer-reviewed papers in top domestic and international academic journals such as Tourism Management, Annals of Tourism Research, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, International Journal of Hospitality Management, and International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management. Her research achievements have won the Excellent Research Awards from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and international academic conferences. She also works as an entrepreneurship mentor for small and medium-sized cultural tourism enterprises.

Her doctoral thesis, Understanding Influencer Marketing and Its Impact on Consumer Behaviour: From Human to Virtual Influencers, was recognised with the IFITT Ph.D. Thesis Excellence Award. Her research has also received awards and recognition from academic associations, international organisations and conferences, reflecting the relevance and impact of her contributions to marketing, tourism and hospitality.

Her research has been published in leading international journals across tourism and hospitality, business and services, including the International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, the Journal of Business Research and The Service Industries Journal. Her publications include several highly cited studies on influencer-consumer congruence and the comparative effectiveness of human and virtual influencers.

He is also a doctoral supervisor specializing in Cultural Policy and Management, the Director and Chief Expert of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism Research Base at UIBE, and the Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the UIBE “International Cultural Management Conference” (2013–2025).

Additionally, he holds positions as Vice President of the China Cultural and Creative Industry Research Association, Deputy Director of the International Creative Management Professional Committee, and Executive Council Member of the China Regional Tourism Development Professional Committee. He has led over 10 national and provincial-level research projects, including the Major Program of the National Social Science Fund of China, and has received three provincial or ministerial-level awards, including the Outstanding Achievement Award from the National Tourism Administration. With more than 100 academic papers published in domestic and international journals, he also serves as a peer reviewer for publications such as International Journal of Culture Studies, Arts Management, Law and Society, and International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.

Before joining Abdullah Gül University, he served at Bahria Business School, Bahria University Islamabad. With more than eleven years of combined academic and industry experience, he has delivered research-development and capacity-building workshops for academic audiences. Through interactive demonstrations, structured frameworks, and applied examples, he helps students and researchers turn emerging ideas into focused, theoretically meaningful, publication-oriented research projects.

Before this role, Okumus served as the Central Florida Hotel and Lodging Association Preeminent Chair Professor at the University of Central Florida’s Rosen College of Hospitality Management, where he also founded and led the Department of Hospitality Services (2007–2013). His academic career includes positions at Mugla and Erciyes Universities in Turkey, alongside earlier industry experience.

He holds a Ph.D. and M.S. from Oxford Brookes University and a B.S. from Cukurova University. Okumus has authored over 330 publications, including more than 220 journal articles. His work has garnered over 34,000 citations (h-index 82). He is editor-in-chief of three leading journals and serves on 25 editorial boards while actively contributing to global research, consulting, and funded projects.

His books include Religious Heritage and Tourism in Asia (co-edited with Dallen Timothy, Routledge, 2026), A Research Agenda for Religious Tourism (co-edited with Joseph Cheer, Edward Elgar, 2024), Sacred Sites, Rituals, and Performances: New Perspective for Religious Tourism Development (MDPI, 2021), Religious Tourism and the Environment (co-edited with Daniel Olsen, CABI, 2020), and Buddhist Tourism in Asia: Towards Sustainable Development (UNWTO, 2020).

He serves as an associate editor of Tourism Geographies and is a member of the editorial boards of Annals of Tourism Research and Tourism Planning and Development. He is a former head of the Planning Program at La Trobe University and holds a Ph.D. in Geography and Environmental Science from Monash University, Australia.