Tourism, Travel, Culture and Heritage Research Group

Inspiring, exploring and progressing the research of tourism, travel, culture and heritage.

What we do

Tourism, Travel, Culture and Heritage exist as individual and interlinked socially produced activities that play an important role in the visitor and creative industries economic sectors of many national economies across the globe. They involve the movement of millions of people annually and impact on the lives of millions of others.

The Tourism, Travel, Culture and Heritage Research Group (TTCH) reflects the inter- and multi-disciplinary nature of these topics. It is composed of researchers with a range of research backgrounds, methodological approaches and expertise drawn from both UK and international contexts. We have a record of successful supervision of both home and international students and are currently involved in a number of internally and externally funded research projects.

Our mission

Our mission is to inspire, explore and progress research regarding the multi-faceted nature of tourism, travel, culture and heritage.

Areas of expertise

• Art history
• British merchant marine travel and marketing
• Cultural heritage
• Dark tourism
• Heritage management
• Identity, selfhood and the body
• Information systems and digital business
• Irish studies
• Mobility and international migration
• Museum studies
• Operations and logistics
• Sustainable tourism and events
• World intangible cultural heritage

Research approaches

• Auto-ethnography
• Conceptual research
• Deep mapping
• Digital mapping
• Ethnography
• Foucauldian and Deleuzian-based frameworks and methodologies
• Interviews
• Mathematical modelling
• Observation techniques
• Oral history
• Semiotic analysis
• Text mining, data mining and machine learning

Group members

DBA Candidates

• Joanne Vincett – ‘Exploring volunteer commitment in a grassroots voluntary organisation: An ethnography of human rights monitoring organisation on the Kent coast of England’

PhD Candidates

• Pinaki Dutta - "An Evaluation of the Role of Gastronomy within the Destination Image of Singapore"
• Hsiang-Ying Cheng - "Curriculum development process on undergraduate event management course: a comparative study of Taiwan and England"

Current externally funded research projects

• A Well-Trodden Path: The History and Heritage of Mass Paths in Ireland funded by a British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant.
• Abandoned spaces in China and how they can become cultural hubs funded by Arts and Humanities Research Council/Newton China Fund.
• Visual Voyages financially initially funded by Merseyside Maritime Museum.

Current internally funded research projects

• The Evaluation of social impacts of a World Intangible Cultural Expression Event: The case of the Annual Carnival Bell Ringers Pageant from the Kastav Region (Croatia).
• An examination of the cultural, economic and historical significance of the Duke of Lancaster ‘Funship’ at Llannerch-y-Môr, Flintshire.
• Jamaican contemporary art exhibition to be curated Christmas 2020- June 2021 at the Victoria Gallery, Liverpool.

Contact us

If you have any inquiries related to research collaborations please contact h.j.andrews@ljmu.ac.uk.

Recent activities

Read a recent blog from Dr Hazel Andrews, Watching Our Borders: Tourism, Brexit and COVID-19 published on the Centre for Brexit Studies site.