Home Our Experts Professor David Simmons

David has passion born from both experience and science in measuring and managing for sustainable tourism outcomes. He is chair of the EarthCheck Research Institute https://earthcheck.org/research/ which supports the advisory, advocacy and benchmarking platforms for the EarthCheck global platform. His work as a research, education and industry leader has been awarded by the conferring of a Companion of the New Zealand order of Merit (CNZM, 2022) and the tourism industry’s most prestigious individual honour, the Sir Jack Newman Award for ‘outstanding service to the tourism industry, including a substantial degree of personal involvement over and above what is normally expected’.

David retired from his role as Professor of Tourism at Lincoln University in 2020 and was awarded the enduring title of Emeritus Professor. In terms of international engagement, he was the director of research for Australia’s Sustainable Tourism Cooperative Research Centre (2008 – 2010). He had opportunity to work on international tourism (planning and governance) programmes in Cambodia (WWF), Mauritius (UNDP), Niue, Vanuatu (UNWTO/UNDP), Nepal (ITTO, MFAT and WWF), India (WWF), Sarawak (E. Malaysia), and DPR (North) Korea (UNWTO) and more recently the sustainability platform for the Azores (Govt of Portugal).