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Dr Craig Wight

Post Nominals PhD
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.
Research Interests I am an experienced tourism industry consultant and author of a number of highly ranked journal publications and book chapters, having contributed articles to the top two journals in my field, Annals of Tourism Research, and Tourism Management. I have also carried out commercial research for a range of commercial clients in the public and private sectors, including Visit Britain, and Visit Hull and East Yorkshire. I am internationally recognised for my contributions to the field of dark tourism/genocide heritage, having recently been interviewed by the New York Times for an article on this topic, and having been invited to speak on this topic at Dundee Centre for Contemporary Arts. I led an international conference on dark tourism in 2022, which was attended by over 40 experts in this field from the USA, France, Canada, Lithuania and the UK. Offshoot projects from this include an application for an ARCS funded PhD in collaboration with Robert Gordon University, and research with the Franklin and Marshall College (USA) into dark tourism attraction identities. I have applied successfully for 6 tranches of funding (worth £30,000) from the Lord Forte Foundation in London to support students in research and employability. I am also an expert advisor to the Haddington Heritage Project group in my home town, having completed a tourism development options appraisal for them in 2021.

I am interested in the discourses of genocide heritage sites in the public cultures of destinations, particularly in Europe. I completed a PhD at Plymouth University in 2014 with a thesis titled Tracking Discourses of Occupation and Genocide in Lithuanian Museums and Sites of Memory.

I am a reviewer for the 4 star international journal Tourism Management.
Teaching and Learning As a Senior Fellow of the HEA, and with a PGCaP qualification I have accomplished a number of milestones in pedagogy. I have demonstrated leadership in establishing a unique approach to the delivery of Tourism, Hospitality and Cruise Management BSc programmes, and I am the Business School Academic Lead for Work Based Learning. I have developed creative approaches to teaching and learning within the programmes I have developed in order to make a measurable difference (in terms of NSS and SPQ) to the student learning experience, and I have disseminated the successful aspects of my approach nationally and internationally through publications and conferences. The achievements against which these successes are measured include the development of two innovative experiential learning journeys to facilitate and enhance student learning, the use of web 2.0 to enhance programme identity and engagement amongst students, and the development and maintenance of strategic partnerships with industry to enhance teaching and learning. They also include strategic leadership of a team of subject-group colleagues over three years leading to substantial improvements to NSS results across four programmes. I have shared best practice in teaching and learning in recent key publications (see Wight, 2016 and Wight and Horner 2015) and a conference paper (Wight, 2016).

I am the academic lead for work based learning in Napier University's business school. As well as developing strategy and managing operations for this module I supervise a number of students in various placement roles around the country and overseas.

I am an active researcher and try to find time each year share my research interests and findings, whether at national and overseas conferences or to the school through research seminars.