Simon Milne

After experiencing a sustained period of international visitor growth prior to 2020, island states throughout the South Pacific have been adjusting to the challenge of rebuilding tourism industries that have been largely closed for 18 months. During this hiatus in travel, many destinations have taken the chance to ‘re-imagine’ tourism strategies and to ‘pivot’ towards more sustainable models of development. I discuss how research can inform tourism strategy in the South Pacific and improve our ability to measure industry performance against sustainable development goals. I argue that research has a critical role to play in ensuring that the ‘reimagined’ tourism of tomorrow is not simply yesterday’s wine poured into a shiny new bottle.

Simon Milne is Professor of Tourism at Auckland University of Technology, where he is Director of the New Zealand Tourism Research Institute. Simon completed his PhD in economic geography at Cambridge University, then taught at McGill University, Montreal for ten years before returning to New Zealand. For the past 35 years Simon’s research has focused on designing and implementing innovative evidence-based approaches to understanding and managing the tourism development challenges that face nations, regions and communities. Simon interests link tourism to the sustainable development of communities in Small Island Developing States. He currently leads the Pacific Tourism Data Initiative (PTDI), implementing scalable tourism decision support systems in 10 South Pacific Island nations. He leads a core project in the National Science Challenge Sustainable Seas program focused on the development of the marine ecotourism sector in Aotearoa NZ. Simon has consulted to international organisations including UNESCAP, UNDP, UNEP, UNIDO, the EU, the World Bank/IFC and the Organisation of American States. Simon is a passionate teacher and educator and has run capacity building programs in SE Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas and currently in the South Pacific as part of the PTDI.