Dr Peter Bolan

Overview

Dr Peter Bolan is a Senior Lecturer and Course Director for the international travel and tourism management programmes in the Ulster University Business School’s Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management.

Peter studied for an honours degree in geography at Ulster before going on to work in the tourism and hospitality industry for a number of years.

Returning to academia he completed an MSc in Tourism Management (Ulster University) in 1995, and moved into a lecturing position in travel and tourism management. Peter obtained a PGCFHE in 1998 and undertook a second Masters degree in eTourism (University of Surrey) in 2004 and in 2010 completed his PhD (Motivation, Authenticity and Displacement in Film-induced Tourism).

He is also a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Peter’s main research areas focus on film/screen tourism, digital tourism, golf tourism and food tourism as well as some pedagogic research on the use of digital technology in teaching. He has published on all these areas in academic journals and leading tourism text books (winning a number of best paper awards at academic conferences) and is currently supervising four PhD studies in relation to various aspects of tourism and digital strategy.

Peter also engages regularly in consultancy work with industry (in line with his core research areas) and works closely with local community and business networks (he is currently chair of a Northern Ireland Food Tourism network for the Causeway region, and sits on the committees of the North Coast Armada Connection Group and the Destination Management and Event Delivery Committee for the Irish Open Golf Championship).

Peter writes for a number of business and industry trade publications and is the tourism commentator for Hospitality Review NI. He is a regular speaker at tourism industry events, conferences and workshops.