Dr Mark Hampton FRGS, FHEA is Reader (Associate Professor) in Tourism Management at the University of Kent, England. Dr Hampton is internationally recognised for his research on tourism’s socio-economic impacts in developing countries, particularly small-scale and coastal/island tourism with a regional focus on South-East Asia (predominantly Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and Myanmar). As a development geographer, his research analyses how tourism might help alleviate poverty and help drive economic development for host communities. His most recent work interrogates the tourism-led inclusive growth framework, but he is also working on tourism’s post-COVID recovery and how this may reveal deeper structural changes to labour and tourism capital relationships.
Dr Hampton has given over 130 conference papers, often as Keynote Speaker; has published over 60 journal articles/book chapters (including Annals of Tourism Research, Tourism Geographies, World Development, Environment & Planning A) and written/edited four books (including Backpacker Tourism & Economic Development, Routledge; & Tourism & Inclusive Growth in Small Island Developing States, Commonwealth Secretariat). His work is highly cited with over 5,060 citations and an h-index of 33. He has extensive field experience in South-East Asia for over 25 years, and his research has been funded by the World Bank; Commonwealth Secretariat; Swiss overseas aid; Malaysian Ministry of Tourism; British Academy and the British Council. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (FRGS), a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), and Visiting Professor at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.