Professor Xavier Font

Biography

I develop creative methods of sustainable tourism production and consumption for the tourism and hospitality industries. I have conducted around 150 courses for more than 3000 businesses on how to market and communicate sustainability, commissioned by the UNWTO, European Commission, national tourist boards, national parks, industry associations and businesses in over 15 countries, as well as numerous reports to promote pro-sustainable behaviour in tourism businesses for UNEP, UNWTO, UNCTAD, UNDP, VisitEngland, VisitWales, Fáilte Ireland, Fair Trade Tourism South Africa, the Catalan Tourist Board, WWF, Travel Foundation, and others. I have thoroughly enjoyed my consultancy projects, which include writing the feasibility study for the Global Sustainable Tourism Council; the development and operating a single process of accreditation of sustainable tourism certification programmes for VisitEngland, VisitWales, and Northern Ireland Tourist Board; the development of a methodology to improve the project management of sustainable tourism projects based on Prince2; the analysis of the market for sustainable tourism and gap analysis for the Chilean industry to develop a sustainable tourism industry; an advisory role for the Global Partnership for Sustainable Tourism to identify sustainable tourism project evaluation criteria for UNEP; the design and consultation of the European Charter for tourism in protected areas certification criteria and accreditation procedures for Europarc Federation; Monitoring and evaluation of an online marketing tool to promote sustainable development for the International Finance Corporation- World Bank group; the feasibility study for a Fair trade tourism standard and label for the Fair Trade Labelling Organisation; and a sustainable supply chain management demonstration project for European tour operators and certified accommodation suppliers funded by EU LIFE; amongst others.

Research interests

I enjoy writing journal articles that provide rigour and reflection to the industry impact of my consultancy. I write about different aspects of sustainability marketing; corporate social responsibility and corporate social reporting; the relation between sustainability motivations, practices and learning; sustainable supply chain management; and I am the most published academic on sustainable tourism certification. I am the co-editor of the Journal of Sustainable Tourism (ABS 3*). To date I have supervised 17 PhD students to completion and examined 24. I am looking forward to supervising new PhD students.

Research collaborations

Since September 2019, I am the Principal Investigator for the University of Surrey in a €23.5m Interreg funded project to reduce winter seasonality in the UK and France by supporting the development of experiential, sustainable tourism offer that improves the economy, contributes to healthy communities and preserves the environment. I contribute in the Global Challenges Research Fund project to reduce water consumption in hotels in the Dominican Republic, in partnership with Aguardio. During 2020 I was contracted by the European Commission to organise the stakeholder consultation for the European Tourism Convention, and to prepare a report to inform EC policy on sustainable tourism measurement methods. Between 2017 and 2020, I delivered a sustainability pledge system for members of the specialist travel association AITO that is more creative and engaging for consumers than traditional sustainability certification approaches, which is providing detailed evidence of the process of sustainability decision-making by businesses.

Teaching

MAN1109 Sustainable tourism and transport

MAN3130 Sustainable operations management

MAN3129 Consultancy

MAN3151 Entrepreneurship

PhD research seminars

Departmental duties

Director of SWELL: Centre for Sustainability and Well-being in the Visitor Economy

Affiliations

Member of the Independent Advisory Group, Travalyst

Head of Impact of Travindy