Cultures at Risk Presenter Biographies

Trevor Sofield

Cultures at Risk — the Success Stories

Trevor Sofield is professor of tourism, School of Leisure and Tourism Management, University of Queensland. He was coordinator of the Australian National Cooperative Research Centre for Sustainable Tourism (STCRC) for Western Australia (1997–2000) and Tasmania (2001–2004), which links 16 universities around Australia in partnership in one of the largest tourism research programs globally. He is currently team leader for the Mekong Tourism Development Program, Cambodia and Vietnam, as technical director, sustainable tourism, for the STCRC/GRM International consulting consortium. He is a former editor-in-chief of Pacific Tourism Review, published in New York; and is currently a resource editor for the world’s leading tourism academic journals, Annals of Tourism Research, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, Journal of Ecotourism, Tourism Recreation Research, Tourism Review International, Anatolia, and Journal of Sports Tourism.

Sofield gained his BA (Hons) in social anthropology from the University of Western Australia, studied international economics through the Australian Department of Foreign Affairsv and completed his PhD in environmental science at James Cook University, Queensland.

Prior to joining the ranks of academia in 1990, Sofield was a senior diplomat in the Australian Foreign Service (with postings in Tanzania, Sri Lanka, Singapore, New Zealand, Solomon Islands and Fiji, amongst others, the final six years at ambassadorial rank). On leaving the Foreign Service he went into partnership to develop an island resort in Solomon Islands, a venture he still part-owns today. He has a wide first-hand experience of tourism issues in the Asia/Pacific having undertaken more than 70 consultancies and research projects in Australia, China, Nepal, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, and 12 Pacific Island countries.

Sofield’s research interests are eclectic and cover sustainable tourism development, community based tourism and cultural minorities, natural and cultural heritage tourism (especially ecotourism and protected area management), environmental, socio-cultural and economic impacts, government tourism policy, and tourism planning. He has more than 200 publications on these topics.

Sofield was born in Perth, Western Australia, but grew up in Tasmania. He is married with three children. His personal interests include all sports (he was a representative hockey player for 12 years), reading, writing poetry, gardening, photography, and wildlife trekking. In an earlier life he was a keen film-maker with more than 30 state, national and international amateur awards for his productions.