​Tourism Geographies welcomes Professor Jarkko Saarinen as the journal's new Editor for Europe starting July 1, 2016. Scholars who have been involved with the International Geographical Union are familiar with Jarkko who is the past Chair of the IGU’s Commission on Tourism, Leisure and Global Change, and where he is the current Vice-President of IGU. In his regular job, Jarkko is Professor of Human Geography (Tourism Studies) at the University of Oulu, Finland. He has also been a Visiting Professor at the University of Botswana, where he is significant research interests.

Jarkko has published several articles in Tourism Geographies related to his interests in tourism development and its socio-cultural and economic impacts, sustainable and community-based tourism, global environmental change, wilderness studies and the construction of the ideas of nature, and culture and indigeneity in tourism.

Professor Saarinen's homepage at the University of Oulu is here. 

With all his other duties, we greatly appreciate Jarkko's willingness to take on this new position with Tourism Geographies.

​-- Alan Lew

​On behalf of everyone who has supported Tourism Geographies since its first issue in 1999, I want to thank Professor Allan M. Williams (University of Surrey, UK) for his contributions as the journal's founding Editor for Europe. As of July 2016, he will phase out of that position and become an Emeritus Editor for the journal.

Allan has been a valuable member of our core editorial team, whose energy and enthusiasm for Tourism Geographies was a tremendous gift toward establishing a strong foundation for us and securing our reputation over time. He certainly made my role as the journal's editor-in-chief much easier, as well as more enjoyable.

A biography of Allan's academic career can be found here. 

We wish Allan all the best in his transition to retirement.

​-- Alan Lew