Patricia Barnett
Doctor of Letters

For the past 20 years, Tricia Barnett was the Director of Tourism Concern , an independent, non-industry based, UK NGO, with members and supporters from around the world. Tourism Concern is involved, amongst many other things, in lobbying for human rights and fighting against exploitation in global tourism. Tricia will be awarded an honorary doctorate in recognition of her lifetime contribution to tourism and her work in developing solutions that promote forms of tourism that provide meaningful benefits to people in destination communities.

Tricia’s work at Tourism Concern led to partnerships in over 20 destination countries and to the organisation being globally known as the only NGO actively campaigning on a variety of tourism related issues and working tirelessly to expose and challenge tourism’s exploitative practices.

Tricia’s contribution to knowledge through cutting edge research, lobbying and policy making in some of the most controversial aspects of tourism studies has been at the core of some of the most significant work by members of staff in the university’s School of Service Management and (CENTOPS) the Centre for Tourism Policy Studies.

Additionally, Tricia’s contribution was fundamental in the creation of the Tourism Concern library, the single most exhaustive collection on Tourism and Sustainability and Tourism and Human rights issues: a research facility that has been key to our under graduate, post graduate, research students and staff over the past 20 years.