Biography

After gaining her first degree in Business Administration in JLU of China, Wei started her career as account manager to carry out modern distance education project (the first stage) for rural primary and secondary school in Hubei province, led by China’s Ministries of Finance, Education and National Development & Reform Commission (2004-2005). Then she was employed as a secretary to chairman of China Chamber of Commerce for Petroleum Industry, ACFIC (2005-2007). After that she came back to academy and acquired her master degree of tourism management in the University of Surrey in 2009. She continued to conduct her PhD research from May 2010 and now is in her first year as a real researcher.

Research Interests

Dark Tourism

Visitor Experience

Tourist Behaviour

Destination Marketing and Management

Quantitative Research Method for Tourism Studies

The phenomenon that people, purposefully or as part of a large itinerary, visit a diverse range of sites associated with deaths, disasters and atrocities is increasingly pervasive within contemporary society. In consequence, dark tourism, over the past few years, witnessed much attention from academics and is becoming fascinating subject to research with its important implications for the tourism industry. Given that the dark tourism literature, to date, remains eclectic and theoretically fragile, many questions revolved around both the production and specifically consumption of dark tourism are being raised, such as visitor experiences, pursued value, outcomes upon the behavioural intention, etc.. In particular, few empirical tests have been adopted to bridge various gaps in our knowledge in this specific context. After all, it requires exploring a holistic approach to the marketing and management of dark touristic attractions from not only supply but demand perspectives as well.

Supervisor: Dr. Gang Li

Co-supervisor: Dr. Avital Biran

Publications

Liu, W., Li, G. and Biran, A. (2010). Post-Disaster Tourist Behaviour: Motivation and Intention, the Global Marketing Conference, Tokyo, Japan, September 9-12, 2010.

Biran, A., Liu, W. and Li, G. (2010) Innovating Disaster Sites Between Leisure and Dark tourism, CIT 2010 - International Congress on Tourism Heritage and Innovation, Porto, Portugal, June 21-23, 2010.

Liu, W. and Li, G. (2009) Post-Disaster Tourist Behaviour: Motivations of Visiting Sichuan after the Earthquake, the 6th China Tourism Forum, Chengdu, China, May 12-13, 2009.