Craig Wight
craig wight

Dr Craig Wight PhD

Associate Professor

 0131 455 4412

  C.Wight@napier.ac.uk

   

Biography

I am an Associate Professor with responsibility for research, income generation and teaching and learning enhancement at Edinburgh Napier University. I have led and delivered a number of modules at undergraduate and postgraduate level with the thrust of these covering strategic management, heritage management, research methods, and market intelligence creation and usage in the tourism and hospitality sectors. I am a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and I am research-active, having authored and co-authored a number of publications on tourism and heritage management in journals and books. I have also undertaken a wealth of tourism, hospitality, leisure and cultural research and consultancy for a range of national and international clients within the public, private and voluntary sectors. I am a recognised expert in the area of genocide heritage in European city destinations and recently gave an interview to the New York Times on this topic. I am the Business School Academic Lead for Work Based Learning (6 month pathways), and I have applied succesfully for over £10,000 of income from the Lord Forte Foundation to fund student scholarships and employability skills development activity amongst our undergraduate students.

School

Research Groups

Themes

Research Areas

News

Events

Esteem

Advisory panels and expert committees or witness

  • Expert advisor to the Haddington Heritage Project
  • Advisor to Visit Britain

 

Conference Organising Activity

  • Co-Invesigator for a Knowledge Exchange Grant (£12,000) from Oxford Brookes University to plan and deliver a two day collaborative research workshop at Shrewsbury Prison Visitor Attraction
  • Conference Organiser: Dark Tourism. Memory, Pilgrimage and the Digital Realm
  • Conference presentation at the ICCHT International Conference on Cultural Heritage and Tourism, Paris, France 23-24 June 2017
  • Conference Chair

 

External Examining/Validations

  • Internal DBA Examiner
  • External Examiner: University of Suffolk

 

Fellowships and Awards

  • Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

 

Invited Speaker

  • Conference presentation: T&L Research Seminar Series, TBS, ENU October 5th, 2021
  • Conference presentation at the Myths of Tourism Conference in Zadar, Croatia. May 9th-12th 2013
  • Conference presentation at the 2nd Advances in Hospitality and Tourism Marketing and Management Conference, Corfu, 31st May-3rd June 2012
  • Invited Speaker at Dundee Centre for Contemporary Arts
  • Conference presentation at Tourist Experiences: Meanings, Motivations, Behaviours, University of Central Lancashire, UK, April 2009
  • Conference presentation at the Second International Interpreting World Heritage Conference, Vancouver, Canada, March 2007
  • Conference Presentation at The First Annual Interpreting World Heritage Conference, "Connecting People to Places through Sustainable Heritage Tourism", San Juan, Puerto Rico, May 1-5 2006

 

Membership of Professional Body

  • Member of the Institute of Hospitality

 

Public/Community Engagement

  • Haddington Heritage Project: Group Associate Member

 

Research Degree External Examining

  • External Examiner (PhD) University of Central Lancashire

 

Reviewing

  • Journal Reviewer: Tourism Management
  • Journal reviewer: Asia Pacific, 2005-present

 

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23 results

Navigating Culture, Religion and Controversy: The Penitensya Rituals in the Philippines as a Dark Event

Book Chapter
Victoria, M., & Wight, C. (in press)
Navigating Culture, Religion and Controversy: The Penitensya Rituals in the Philippines as a Dark Event. In The Routledge Handbook of Dark Events: Celebrations, Heritage, and Customs of Death and the Macabre. Routledge
This paper navigates the complex interplay between cultural tradition and controversy through an in-depth exploration of Penitensya, a Filipino Lenten ritual known for its vio...

Object authenticity applied to imaginaries of racialized national culture: English-language-school sojourners in Australia

Journal Article
Stanley, P., & Wight, C. (online)
Object authenticity applied to imaginaries of racialized national culture: English-language-school sojourners in Australia. Language and Intercultural Communication, https://doi.org/10.1080/14708477.2025.2464577
This study examines the experiences of international sojourners attending English-language schools in Australia, exploring how these students' imaginaries shape their expectat...

Theorizing ‘cultural authenticity’ in Australian youth tourism: English language schools, the Anglophone West, and holding a koala

Presentation / Conference Contribution
Stanley, P., & Wight, C. (2024, May)
Theorizing ‘cultural authenticity’ in Australian youth tourism: English language schools, the Anglophone West, and holding a koala. Presented at International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, USA
This study considers cultural adaptation through tourism, focusing on language-travelers: hybrid education-tourism consumers whose voices remain relatively silent in tourism s...

The problem with shaming people for Auschwitz selfies

Digital Artefact
Wight, C., & Stanley, P. (2024)
The problem with shaming people for Auschwitz selfies. [Online newspaper]
Selfies have become the modern day equivalent of postcards, a way to share our travel experiences with family and friends on social media. It’s one thing to strike a goofy pos...

Holocaust heritage digilantism on Instagram

Journal Article
Wight, C., & Stanley, P. (in press)
Holocaust heritage digilantism on Instagram. Tourism Recreation Research, https://doi.org/10.1080/02508281.2022.2153994
Discursive, netnographic and visual methods have been applied in the past to critique self-images, providing insight into the behaviours of tourists. However, such studies hav...

Keynote: Holocaust Heritage Digilantism on Instagram

Presentation / Conference Contribution
Wight, C. (2022, May)
Keynote: Holocaust Heritage Digilantism on Instagram. Presented at Dark Tourism: Memory, Pilgrimage and the Digital Realm, Edinburgh
Discursive, netnographic and visual methods have been applied in the past to critique self-images, providing insight into the behaviours of tourists. However, such studies hav...

“Hayan na ang mga Hampas-dugo! (the Penitents are coming!)”: Penitensya as Religious-Dark Tourism

Journal Article
Wight, C., & Victoria, M. (2022)
“Hayan na ang mga Hampas-dugo! (the Penitents are coming!)”: Penitensya as Religious-Dark Tourism. Tourist Studies, 22(1), 89-113. https://doi.org/10.1177/14687976211067261
This paper applies indigenous research methods to understand the motives of visitors attending Penitensya (a Lenten Filipino ritual involving violent ritualistic performances)...

Tourism, the tourist experience and postmodernity: theory, application and research

Book Chapter
Wight, C. (2021)
Tourism, the tourist experience and postmodernity: theory, application and research. In R. Sharpley (Ed.), Routledge Handbook of the Tourist Experience (9-23). London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003219866-3
This chapter introduces the concept of postmodernity as it relates to the tourism industry, and to tourism research. The aim is to offer students and academics interested in p...

Visitor Perceptions of European Holocaust Heritage: A Social Media Analysis

Journal Article
Wight, A. C. (2020)
Visitor Perceptions of European Holocaust Heritage: A Social Media Analysis. Tourism Management, 81, Article 104142. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2020.104142
This study presents a netnographic discourse analysis of social media content generated around three high profile European Holocaust heritage sites: Ann Frank’s House in Amste...

Making an Impact: Student Learning Journeys in Tourism and Hospitality Programmes

Presentation / Conference Contribution
Wight, C. (2019, April)
Making an Impact: Student Learning Journeys in Tourism and Hospitality Programmes. Paper presented at The 2019 Vienna International Academic Conference, Vienna, Austria
Stakeholders involved in shaping the future of tourism and hospitality business management degrees have faced a dilemma over recent years. On the one hand, graduates who are t...

Pre-Napier Funded Projects

  • Commercial funding: West Dunbartonshire Council, £6,822. Visitor Loyalty Options Appraisal
  • Commercial Funding: West Dunbartonshire Council. £5,000, Stakeholder Consultation and Tourism Strategy (Glasgow Caledonian University) 2009
  • Commercial Funding (contributor): St Lucia Hotels and Tourism Association (value £25,000). Tourism Product Audit, Service Review and Training Package (Glasgow Caledonian University)
  • Commercial Funding, Visit Britain, £3,000, A case study analysis of the structures and budgets of National Tourism Organisations. Glasgow Caledonian University,
  • Commercial funding (contributor). Visit Hull and East Yorkshire. Glasgow Caledonian University. (value £10,000). A review of the impact of modernisation on the tourist information service infrastructure in Hull and East Yorkshire
  • Commercial Funding, Visit Scotland, £3000, New Futures: Scottish Tourism in 2030. Glasgow Caledonian University 2008
  • Commercial Funding. North Wales Tourism Partnership. (£5,000). strategic review of attractions consortia in North Wales, Glasgow Caledonian University, 2008
  • Commercial Funding (Project Consultant), Visit Hull and East Yorkshire, £15,000, Glasgow Caledonian University, 2008/09
  • Project Manager for the economic impact analyses of the Burns 2007/2006 celebrations and project support for economic analyses of the /2005/2004 Festivals in Ayrshire for the Burns Festival company

Current Post Grad projects

Previous Post Grad projects

Non-Napier PhD or MSc by Research supervisions

  • DBA supervision, Corinne Tomta-Henrich, University of Plymouth (completed) 15/9/2020
  • DBA Supervision, George Dexter, University of Plymouth (complete) 17/7/2018
  • DBA Supervision, Reynatou Noma Mounkaila, University of Plymouth (completed) 1/4/2019
  • DBA Supervision. Alex Rowe, University of Plymouth
  • DBA supervision
  • MSC by Research Supervision, Alex Rowe (Plymouth University)
  • DBA supervision