Mike Duignan

Dr Mike Duignan is a Senior Lecturer in Management at Coventry Business School and a Research Associate at the Centre for Business in Society at Coventry University (UK). He was previously a Senior Lecturer and Programme Director of the BSc Tourism Management and BSc Events Management at Anglia Ruskin (Cambridge, UK) and has held Visiting Lectureships at Pace University (New York, US) and Berlin School of Economics and Law (Berlin, Germany). Before commencing his Ph.D in 2012, Mike led the Research Council’s UK (RCUK) funded national portfolio of Vitae’s Researcher Development training: programmes, workshops, conferences, events and resources. He had the privilege to work with, learn from and mentor hundreds of Ph.D, early career and senior researchers across the UK and Europe. He holds a Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (HEA) with a strong track record of publishing in leading international journals; managing complex industry and research projects and grants; learning and teaching excellence – as detailed below.

Mike has published over fifteen research papers in leading, international journals like Tourism Management and presented his work at conferences across the US, Australia, UK and Europe. He has researched a range of cultural and sporting events, from the mega-events like the Olympics (London 2012, Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020), major and hallmark events like New York Marathon (2019-2020), Cambridge Half Marathon, EAT Cambridge Food and Drink Festival and e-Luminate Light Festival. Mike utilizes a range of methods and approaches (e.g. lived experiences, narrative analysis, real-time walking methodologies, visual techniques, vlogging right through to large-scale quantitative data sets).

Mindful of real-world impact, Mike frequently works closely work policy makers, industry, event and festivals practitioners and leaders to generate insights, underpin his research and apply results. He has worked with well-renowned organisations like the International Olympic Committee (IOC), UK Government Trading Standards, United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) through to inspiring local leaders at a regional level. Sponsored by VisitEngland, Mike recently won the Association for Tourism in Higher Education (ATHE) award for ‘Leadership in the Visitor Economy’ for his work and contribution to the field of ‘slow tourism’. He regularly speaks to international, national and regional media, including ABC News (Australia), BBC, ITV and LBC (UK) and the Times of India (India) and is frequently invited to speak at various prestigious conference like the Tourism Management Institute (TMI), University of Cambridge ‘Festival of Ideas’ through to International Events Expos.

Mike looks at the organizational, management and strategic aspects of tourism industries, visitor economies and large- and small-scale sporting events and cultural festivals. Specifically, he draws on the study of field configuring events to examine how and why events serve as a key driver and mechanism of change that enable and constrain urban, place, tourism and regional development, management and strategy.

Examining both the short-term and longer-term legacies of events and festivals, he looks at two organisational fields in particular: 1) civic-geographic (e.g. how events and festivals impact at a host country, city and community level), and 2) industry-specific (e.g. how events and festivals directly and indirectly contribute to destination development and transform tourism industries and visitor economies at the international, national and regional level).

Due to the place-based and often applied nature of his work; organisational, management and strategic perspectives frequently overlap with other complementary disciplines like geography, urban studies and regional development. Multidisciplinary in nature and critically-orientated, Mike questions both the productive and destructive capabilities and outcomes of field configuring events, specifically related to the sustainability of local communities, usually small businesses and local enterprising individuals and collectives operating within host environments.

Mike has presented at 15+ major international conferences, including Sport Management Australia and New Zealand (SMAANZ), ATLAS, ATHE, AEME, Royal Geographical Society. Additionally, he has written for a range of academic, industry, and UK Government publications, including: Journal of Trading Standards, London Chamber of Commerce, and The Conversation. He also peer reviews for several journals, including: Tourism Management, Tourism Geographies, International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Research, and International Journal of Event and Festival Management, and is currently editing a new visitor economy management text book, bringing together DMOs and academics from across the UK, Europe and Internationally. This is commissed by CABI and entitled: Managing the Visitor Economy: Concepts, Collaborations and Cases. Click here for more information: https://michaelduignan.uk/2018/11/30/cabi-key-text-managing-the-visitor-economy-concepts-cases-and-collaborations-duignan-forthcoming-2020/.

Income generation

·       Mike has generated just over £420,000 in income generation, leveraging a range of sources:

·       International Olympic Committee (IOC);

·       European Regional Development Fund: “Innovation Bridge” fund;

·       European Regional Development Fund: “REACTOR” project;

·       Tourism Management Institute;

·       Industry funded Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs);

·       Centre for Innovative Business Education;

·       Various Research Councils across Research Councils UK (RCUK) e.g. AHRC, ESRC;

·       Various international universities, including China to develop "Train the Trainer" programmes for developing international tourism/events/visitor economy related university programmes

·       Various commissioned consultancy reports for sports events and sports organisations to advise event impact, policy and development related issues, including Cambridge Half Marathon, EATCambridge, Lincoln City FC.

Industry experience

Since 2010, Mike has managed and/or supported the delivery of over 80 events, conferences, and / or festivals across education, sporting and cultural sectors, managing events in an eclectic range of contexts, from internationally renowned venues like the British Library, public squares and parks, to university institutions across the UK. Additionally, he frequently consults national and regional organisations on matters related to event impact, policy and development, alongside DMOs like Visit Cambridge – advising on all aspects of destination development, management and marketing. Over the last 3 years, he has analysed and reported on the economic impact of 6 events - from half marathons, to regional food and drink festivals. Mike has an extensive network of visitor economy, sports, events and tourism industry and policy stakeholders across Europe.

Through leveraging European Union Regional Development (ERDF) and industry funds, Mike has been consulting a range of small businesses and start-ups on a series of innovation, strategy and marketing projects - from tour guiding apps, to digital event badging companies, right through supporting the expansion of Cambridge’s “e-Luminate” light festival. Mike is a shareholder and consultant to Cambridge-based tourism company “YoYo Let’s Go” and is the Owner-Director of “Tiptoe Travel” (www.tiptoetravel.co.uk) – a cultural tour experience company.

Learning and teaching

He has taught across all levels at undergraduate, postgraduate, MBA and PhD level in the field of management and organisational theory, specifically in the context the visitor economy, sports, events and tourism.  Mike’s student-centred, industry and research led and informed approach – inside and outside the classroom -  has led to year on year university wide recognition. Mike was awarded “Lecturer of the Year” in 2015, finalist for “Outstanding Supervisor of the Year” (2016) and “Innovative Lecturer of the Year” (2017), won the highest university honour the “Special Recognition” award (2017) and runner up in 2018. As a result of Mike’s wide-ranging industry, policy and academic networks and projects, he frequently enjoys bringing in his own experiences, anecdotes, and professional challenges faced to contextualise and enliven theoretical debate and multidisciplinary approaches to conceptual development - fundamental in the study of the visitor economy, sports, events and tourism.

Mike has led over 20 different learning and teaching initiatives and projects, both internally and externally funded. Most recently this includes examining the role of ‘students as partners’, specifically their role as co-inquirers and collaborators in research and industry projects to support skills development and add-value to faculty and institutional outputs. Throughout the past 7 years, I have delivered a series of talks and workshops on such innovations at major national conferences, tourism and events education forums, specifically the way university programmes can strategically align with industry stakeholders to achieve greater constructive alignment with programme and module level learning outcomes.