Peter
Varley
tidlegare tilsett
Position:
Visiting researcher
Academic title:
PhD
Telephone:

Pete Varley is the founder and Director of the Centre for Recreation and Tourism Research in Scotland, and now Associate Professor of Marketing at Edinburgh Napier University. He is also a Visiting Researcher at Western Norway Research Institute, Sogndal.

Formerly (2009-2012) he was Head of the School of Adventure Studies at West Highland College UHI. Before moving to the wilds of Scotland, Pete spent 12 years as a senior lecturer in consumer studies, at the Department of Marketing and Retail Management in Manchester Metropolitan University Business School. There his interests centred upon the sociology of consumption, post-structuralist research approaches and postmodern consumer practices.

His current research interests include the following topics and writing projects:

  • Reimagining hospitality
  • Digital / social marketing solutions for tourism SME’s and destinations
  • The impacts of events and festivals on destination brands
  • Fuzzy places – the challenge of branding and multi-layered meanings of place
  • Health and well-being in active leisure
  • Food, gastronomy and taste in tourism
  • The marketing of tourist experiences as emotional / service products
  • Ethnographic and ethnomethodological research approaches to experiential inquiry
  • The marketing, management and consumption of ‘wild’ places
  • Slow movements, leisure and hypermodernity
  • The role of storytelling and narratives in experiential marketing
  • The concept of ‘Luxury’ in experiential marketing