Professor Saarinen, Vice-President of International Geographical Union (IGU) and past Chair of the IGUs Commission on Tourism, Leisure and Global Change, is Professor of Human Geography (Tourism Studies) at the University of Oulu, Finland, and Adjunct Professor (Docent) (Human Geography and Tourism) in the Finnish University Network for Tourism Studies. His research interests include tourism development and its socio-cultural and economic impacts and sustainable and community-based tourism, global environmental change, wilderness studies and the construction of the ideas of nature, culture and indigeneity in tourism. He is also involved in research in Northern Finland and Southern Africa.

Dr Allesandro Inversini, a Senior Lecturer in Events Management at the University of Bournemouth in the UK, holds a PhD in Communication Science from the Università della Svizzera italiana, Lugano, Switzerland. He has been project manager from 2009 to 2011 and executive director of webatelier.net (Universitá della Svizzera italiana), a research and development lab dedicated to the topic of new media in tourism communication. In January 2012 Dr Inversini was elected as Board Member of the International Federation of IT in Travel and Tourism (IFITT), where he coordinates eMarketing initiatives and the ICT4D scholarship.

Caption:  To be submitted.