Kim Sangkyun

Associate Professor Kim has been involved in various funded research projects, academic research collaborations, and professional consultancies. He has published more than 100 scholarly and industrial publications including about 50 refereed journal articles and 20 book chapters as well as two edited books published by Springer – ‘Food Tourism in Asia (2019)’ and ‘Film tourism in Asia: Evolution, transformation and trajectory (2018)’.

His work is international and interdisciplinary. Associate Professor Kim’s research interests stem from five main themes at the boundaries of social psychology, cultural studies, media studies, geography, and tourism management and marketing. The first focuses on the close relationships between tourism and popular culture, with particular attention to tourism and (popular) media, media representation, celebrity cultures, and fan pilgrimage. Specifically, he is an internationally recognised scholar in the field of film tourism and its broader impacts and implications. He currently involves in a very prestigious European Research Council (ERC) funded research project on international film tourism phenomenon entitled ‘Worlds of Imagination’, which secured a €2 million. In 2020, Associate Professor Kim was also appointed as an expert advisory panel member for a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual research project funded by European Research Council. The project is entitled ‘Living in the media: Analysing the Impact of Media Tourism on Locals’ Identities and Sense of Belonging (2020-2022)’.

A second theme is centred on the relationship between intangible heritage (e.g. food), identity and tourism with particular attention to global food tourism phenomenon. A third area concerns tourist behaviours including experiences, motivations, and emotions. A fourth area relates to research methods in tourism including qualitative, quantitative, mixed, and visual research methods. A fifth theme focuses on socio-cultural aspects of tourism from a community perspective (e.g., perceptions, attitudes, empowerment, social capital, quality of life).

He is on the editorial boards of six reputed international tourism-related journals: Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, Journal of Tourism & Cultural Change, International Journal of Tourism Research, Tourism Recreation Research, Tourism Management Perspectives, and Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research. He had also served as Academic Board Member of Le Cordon Bleu (LCB) International for 8 years.

Associate Professor Kim was a visiting research fellow at Takasaki University of Commerce in Japan and at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) in China, and a visiting associate professor at Zhejiang University in China and Universitas Gadjah Made (UGM) in Indonesia. He is currently a visiting professor at School of History, Culture and Communication in Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands.