Brent Lovelock

Biography

Brent is an Associate Professor with the Department of Tourism. His background is in natural resource management and protected area tourism and recreation. Brent's main research interest has been the application of sustainable tourism – in its broadest sense – environmentally, socially and politically. He has undertaken research in North America, New Zealand and the Asia-Pacific region, examining collaborative planning processes for sustainable tourism development. Brent's interest in sustainable tourism has seen him become involved in regional tourism planning, and Brent successfully led a team of researchers in the development of a sustainable tourism strategy for the Catlins region in the south of New Zealand. He has undertaken further consultancy work for various nature-based tourism providers. In his administrative roles, Brent is a course advisor for the BCom and Chair of the Department’s Teaching and Learning Committee. Brent also coordinates TOUR 219 (Destination Management), and TOUR 418 (Destination Management Strategies).  

Research Interest

 A current major research interest involves consumptive forms of wildlife tourism and recreation - hunting, shooting and sportfishing. He has recently published a book on this topic (Tourism and the Consumption of Wildlife: Hunting, Shooting and Sportfishing (Routledge: London 2008)) that has been received as “…one of the best collections of empirical and theoretical works in tourism in recent years… This book is highly recommended” (Annals of Tourism Research, 35 (2008), pp. 842-843). Brent's current work on hunting involves cross-national comparative research on obstacles to the growth of hunting as a sustainable form of recreation/tourism, based on the work in Europe, Africa and New Zealand. He is also involved in an international collaborative research project exploring recreational and touristic fishing as a sustainable economic activity within remote maritime communities – having undertaken field research on Stewart Island, the Chathams, and in the Lofoten Islands, Norway.