A market positioning approach to university–industry collaboration in tourism

ABSTRACT

The dissemination and sharing of knowledge between universities and industry has long been recognised as problematic; this has also been identified as an issue for tourism. Despite the increased importance of external research funding and impactful research, there is often a reluctance amongst industry practitioners to collaborate with academics on research related projects. For those academic researchers and academic institutions seeking to pursue applied research opportunities and increase their engagement with industry, there is a need to understand what position they hold in the market. This paper sought to explore industry perceptions of academics and academic researchers and looks specifically at the tourism discipline. However, this study extends on previous research that has explored university–industry collaboration to incorporate image and market positioning. The market position of academics is discussed as an innovative approach to improving the perceptions of academics and their research in the minds of industry, providing greater confidence and trust, and thus creating pathways for increased knowledge transfer.

KEYWORDS:

• University–industry collaboration
• research
• consultancy
• market position
• positioning

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Gabby Walters’ primary research interests revolve around tourism marketing communications, tourist behaviour and tourism crisis recovery. Currently, she is working on a series of studies that seek to investigate the impact that terrorism-related activity is likely to have on travel behaviour and tourist decision-making. This research will identify marketing-related response strategies for tourism managers seeking to avoid a significant downturn in tourist visitation if and when such events occur. Dr Walters has led a number of industry consultancy projects for both state and regional tourism organisations within Australia and has been invited on several occasions to deliver key note addresses on brand image recovery to destinations that have been affected by some form of crises or natural disaster.

Lisa Ruhanen (PhD, GCEd, BBusHons) is an Associate Professor in Tourism and the Director of Education with the UQ Business School, The University of Queensland. She has undertaken more than 30 academic and consultancy research projects in Australia and overseas in the areas of Indigenous tourism, sustainable tourism and policy, planning and governance. Lisa has more than 100 academic publications and in 2017 she and colleagues co-edited a book on Indigenous tourism: Cases from Australia and New Zealand.