Craig Wight
craig wight

Dr Craig Wight PhD

Associate Professor

 0131 455 4412

  C.Wight@napier.ac.uk

   

Biography

I am an Associate Professor with responsibility for research, income generation and teaching and learning enhancement at Edinburgh Napier University. I have led and delivered a number of modules at undergraduate and postgraduate level with the thrust of these covering strategic management, heritage management, research methods, and market intelligence creation and usage in the tourism and hospitality sectors. I am a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and I am research-active, having authored and co-authored a number of publications on tourism and heritage management in journals and books. I have also undertaken a wealth of tourism, hospitality, leisure and cultural research and consultancy for a range of national and international clients within the public, private and voluntary sectors. I am a recognised expert in the area of genocide heritage in European city destinations and recently gave an interview to the New York Times on this topic. I am the Business School Academic Lead for Work Based Learning (6 month pathways), and I have applied succesfully for over £10,000 of income from the Lord Forte Foundation to fund student scholarships and employability skills development activity amongst our undergraduate students.

School

Research Groups

Themes

Research Areas

News

Events

Esteem

Advisory panels and expert committees or witness

  • Expert advisor to the Haddington Heritage Project
  • Advisor to Visit Britain

 

Conference Organising Activity

  • Conference Organiser: Dark Tourism. Memory, Pilgrimage and the Digital Realm
  • Conference Chair
  • Conference presentation at the ICCHT International Conference on Cultural Heritage and Tourism, Paris, France 23-24 June 2017

 

External Examining/Validations

  • Internal DBA Examiner
  • External Examiner: University of Suffolk

 

Fellowships and Awards

  • Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

 

Invited Speaker

  • Conference presentation: T&L Research Seminar Series, TBS, ENU October 5th, 2021
  • Conference presentation at the Myths of Tourism Conference in Zadar, Croatia. May 9th-12th 2013
  • Conference presentation at the 2nd Advances in Hospitality and Tourism Marketing and Management Conference, Corfu, 31st May-3rd June 2012
  • Invited Speaker at Dundee Centre for Contemporary Arts
  • Conference presentation at Tourist Experiences: Meanings, Motivations, Behaviours, University of Central Lancashire, UK, April 2009
  • Conference presentation at the Second International Interpreting World Heritage Conference, Vancouver, Canada, March 2007
  • Conference Presentation at The First Annual Interpreting World Heritage Conference, "Connecting People to Places through Sustainable Heritage Tourism", San Juan, Puerto Rico, May 1-5 2006

 

Membership of Professional Body

  • Member of the Institute of Hospitality

 

Public/Community Engagement

  • Haddington Heritage Project: Group Associate Member

 

Research Degree External Examining

  • External Examiner (PhD) University of Central Lancashire

 

Reviewing

  • Journal Reviewer: Tourism Management
  • Journal reviewer: Asia Pacific, 2005-present

 

Filter by

Date


18 results

Identifying best practice in national tourism organisations: Lessons for the United Kingdom

Journal Article
Wight, A. C. (2013)
Identifying best practice in national tourism organisations: Lessons for the United Kingdom. Journal of Vacation Marketing, 19(2), 133-148. https://doi.org/10.1177/1356766712463717
The UK Leisure and Tourism sector is uniquely fragmented at government and industry levels and comprises a wide and diverse range of products and services. Tourist boards and ...

Contested National Tragedies: An Ethical Dimension

Book Chapter
Wight, C. (2009)
Contested National Tragedies: An Ethical Dimension. In R. Sharpley, & P. R. Stone (Eds.), The Darker Side of Travel: The Theory and Practice of Dark Tourism (129-144). Bristol: Channel View Publications. https://doi.org/10.21832/9781845411169-008
This chapter explores some of the intrinsically western ethical complexities associated with the production and consumption of dark tourism attractions, focusing specifi c...

Owner-Manager Perspectives on Environmental Management in Micro and Small Tourism Enterprises in the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand

Book Chapter
Rainford, S., & Wight, C. (2009)
Owner-Manager Perspectives on Environmental Management in Micro and Small Tourism Enterprises in the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand. In D. Leslie (Ed.), Tourism Enterprises and Sustainable Development: International Perspectives on Responses to the Sustainability Agenda (157-175). New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203873588
The issue of sustainable tourism continues to dominate industry and public forums such as conferences, textbooks, and corporate policy statements, yet there are still relative...

Reengineering “Authenticity”: Tourism Encounters with Cuisine in Rural Great Britain

Book Chapter
Wight, C. (2008)
Reengineering “Authenticity”: Tourism Encounters with Cuisine in Rural Great Britain. In L. C. Rubin (Ed.), Food for thought: essays on eating and culture (153-165). Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company
Food and eating are firmly established components within the burgeoning mix of new ‘ethical’, culturally-concerned tourism experiences in the West. Perhaps as much as 25 per c...

The Legerdemain in the Rhetoric of Battlefield Museums: Historical Pluralism and Cryptic Parti Pris

Book Chapter
Wight, C. (2007)
The Legerdemain in the Rhetoric of Battlefield Museums: Historical Pluralism and Cryptic Parti Pris. In C. Ryan (Ed.), Battlefield Tourism: History, Place and Interpretation (111-117). Oxford: Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-08-045362-0.50015-4

Selective interpretation and eclectic human heritage in Lithuania

Journal Article
Craig Wight, A., & Lennon, J. J. (2007)
Selective interpretation and eclectic human heritage in Lithuania. Tourism Management, 28(2), 519-529. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2006.03.006
This paper examines recent controversy in Lithuania surrounding 20th century wartime tragedy with particular emphasis on contrasting the commemoration of the mass exterminatio...

Philosophical and methodological praxes in dark tourism: Controversy, contention and the evolving paradigm

Journal Article
Wight, A. C. (2006)
Philosophical and methodological praxes in dark tourism: Controversy, contention and the evolving paradigm. Journal of Vacation Marketing, 12(2), 119-129. https://doi.org/10.1177/1356766706062151
The following article will examine examples of current and theoretical issues in academic and related literature written on the subject of what has been variously referred to ...

Towards an Understanding of Visitor Perceptions of ‘Dark’ Attractions: The Case of the Imperial War museum of the North, Manchester

Journal Article
Wight, C., & Lennon, J. (2004)
Towards an Understanding of Visitor Perceptions of ‘Dark’ Attractions: The Case of the Imperial War museum of the North, Manchester. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism, 2(2), 105-122
Governments and authoritative stakeholders are faced with dilemmas regarding the representation of sites associated with death and disaster in the context of tourism visits. N...

Pre-Napier Funded Projects

  • Commercial funding: West Dunbartonshire Council, £6,822. Visitor Loyalty Options Appraisal
  • Commercial Funding (contributor): St Lucia Hotels and Tourism Association (value £25,000). Tourism Product Audit, Service Review and Training Package (Glasgow Caledonian University)
  • Commercial Funding: West Dunbartonshire Council. £5,000, Stakeholder Consultation and Tourism Strategy (Glasgow Caledonian University) 2009
  • Commercial funding (contributor). Visit Hull and East Yorkshire. Glasgow Caledonian University. (value £10,000). A review of the impact of modernisation on the tourist information service infrastructure in Hull and East Yorkshire
  • Commercial Funding, Visit Scotland, £3000, New Futures: Scottish Tourism in 2030. Glasgow Caledonian University 2008
  • Commercial Funding (Project Consultant), Visit Hull and East Yorkshire, £15,000, Glasgow Caledonian University, 2008/09
  • Commercial Funding. North Wales Tourism Partnership. (£5,000). strategic review of attractions consortia in North Wales, Glasgow Caledonian University, 2008
  • Commercial Funding, Visit Britain, £3,000, A case study analysis of the structures and budgets of National Tourism Organisations. Glasgow Caledonian University,
  • Project Manager for the economic impact analyses of the Burns 2007/2006 celebrations and project support for economic analyses of the /2005/2004 Festivals in Ayrshire for the Burns Festival company

Current Post Grad projects

Non-Napier PhD or MSc by Research supervisions

  • DBA supervision, Corinne Tomta-Henrich, University of Plymouth (completed) 15/9/2020
  • DBA Supervision. Alex Rowe, University of Plymouth
  • DBA Supervision, George Dexter, University of Plymouth (complete) 17/7/2018
  • DBA Supervision, Reynatou Noma Mounkaila, University of Plymouth (completed) 1/4/2019
  • DBA supervision
  • DBA supervision
  • MSC by Research Supervision, Alex Rowe (Plymouth University)