Teaming for Interdisciplinary Research Pre-Seed Program

Community tourism is a public/private community collaboration among residents and organizations which can produce significant economic outputs while providing quality experiences to visitors. In order for a community’s hospitality and tourism industry to be successful the public/private collaboration among residents and organizations needs to be in sync and well-orchestrated. However, specific tourism industry research such as visitor profiles, tourism economic impact studies, hotel trend analyses, and tourism marketing and branding assessments are needed for each community to successfully compete in the marketplace. This interdisciplinary team of 13 tenure/tenure track faculty and affiliated service and research faculty who collectively have considerable experience in hospitality and tourism research will implement the UGA HOSpitality and Tourism Research Initiative (UGA HOST Research Initiative). The primary goal of the UGA HOST Research Initiative is to provide comprehensive hospitality and tourism research support that will enhance and enrich the ongoing community public engagement efforts. Faculty and staff researchers from Agricultural and Applied Economics (AAEC), Hospitality and Food Industry Management (HFIM), Parks, Recreation, and Tourism (PRTM), Landscape Architecture (LAND), Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant, and Public Service and Outreach will organize and prioritize a research agenda that supports UGA Extension, UGA Public Service and Outreach, and the Center of Agribusiness and Economic Development. Our initiative will form a group of hospitality and tourism content experts who will provide valuable and industry nuanced information to UGA Extension, UGA Public Service and Outreach, Center for Agribusiness and Economic Development, and other UGA hospitality and tourism publicly engaged programs. Research results conducted by the team will be used to support applications to larger federally and industry supported hospitality and tourism grant programs which engage hospitality and tourism efforts at the local, state, and regional community levels.

Team Lead

John Salazar
Hospitality and Food Industry Management
jsalazar@uga.edu

Team Members

Dan Remar
Hospitality and Food Industry Management

John Bergstrom
Agricultural and Applied Economics

Craig Landry
Agricultural and Applied Economics

Susana Ferreira
Agricultural and Applied Economics

Ben Campbell
Agricultural and Applied Economics

Kyle Woosnam
Parks, Recreation, and Tourism

Bynum Boley
Parks, Recreation, and Tourism

Sharon Kane
Agricultural and Applied Economics

Donnie Longenecker
Landscape Architecture

Vanessa Shonkwiler
Agricultural and Applied Economics

Bryan Fluech
Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant

Stacy Jones
Georgia Center for Continuing Education and Hotel