2019 Laureate Profile: Professor Sara Dolnicar
Professor Sara Dolnicar
Administering Organisation: The University of Queensland
Discipline area: Social, Behavioural and Economic Sciences
Fellowship project summary:
FL190100143: This Fellowship will develop and validate a new theory that explains, predicts, and elicits pro-environmental conduct in pleasure-focused settings like tourism. It is significant in challenging the assumption of conventional theories about universal drivers of human behaviour, asserting instead that increased pleasure or changed infrastructure are needed to boost pro-environmental actions in hedonic contexts. The outcome and benefits will be in effective, evidenced-based social interventions that reduce the huge environmental burden of tourism and other pleasure-focused industries. Such interventions are urgently needed to manage the impacts arising from the extraordinary growth in sectors critical to the Australian economy.
Australian Research Council funding: $3,200,000
About Professor Dolnicar
Sara Dolnicar is a Professor in the Tourism Department at The University of Queensland Business School.
Since her PhD, Professor Dolnicar has worked to improve market segmentation methodology and refine empirical measures used in social science research. She has applied her work primarily to tourism, but has also contributed to the areas of environmental volunteering, foster care and public acceptance of water alternatives. Her current research program focuses on developing and experimentally testing measures that trigger pro-environmental behaviour in tourists.
In recognition of her achievements, she was elected a Fellow of the International Academy for the Study of Tourism, the International Association of Scientific Experts in Tourism (AIEST), and the Council for Australasian Tourism and Hospitality Education (CAUTHE). Sara currently serves the Co-Editor in Chief of one of the three leading tourism journals globally: Annals of Tourism Research. She was awarded the Travel and Tourism Research Association (TTRA) Distinguished Researcher Award in 2017, and named the Slovenian Ambassador of Science in 2016, the highest honour the Republic of Slovenia bestows on expatriate Slovenian researchers in recognition of global excellence, impact, and knowledge transfer.
Find out more about Professor Dolnicar’s research by visiting her profile page on The University of Queensland website. For further information about this funding scheme, please visit the Australian Laureate Fellowships scheme page on the ARC website.
Image credit: The University of Queensland.