Dr. Florian Zach

FACULTY AFFILIATE   |   Global Change Center

Hospitality and Tourism Management

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(540) 231-8425.  •  florian@vt.edu

Florian Zach, PhD is an Assistant Professor in the Howard Feiertag Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Pamplin College of Business at Virginia Tech. He received his PhD in Business Administration from Temple University, USA and his Master in International Economics and Business Studies from the University of Innsbruck, Austria. With an academic training in economics and business, his research focuses on innovation in tourism and hospitality. Dr. Zach is interested in strategic issues that support the sustainable development of tourism destinations. Past publications have investigated the inter-organizational collaboration and networks to understand how destination stakeholders collectively develop tourism innovations. Additionally, he works with colleagues to understand human-computer interaction issues stemming from the use of cutting-edge technologies in the context of tourism.

Tourism trends are often directly impacted by changes in the environment and climate. Two relevant projects currently under study by Dr. Zach include:

• exploring the effects of summer adventure parks built by ski resorts in the Austrian Alps as a response to shorter winter and longer summer seasons
• impacts of the 2018 Florida Red Tide on hotel and short-term rental (Airbnb and similar) booking

To further innovation research in tourism and hospitality, Dr. Zach co-founded and currently co-chairs the Alliance for Innovators and Researchers in Tourism and Hospitality (AIRTH; www.airth.global), connecting professionals and academics and providing free innovation case studies for teaching. Dr. Zach publishes in internationally top ranked tourism and hospitality journals including Annals of Tourism Research, Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, Tourism Management and Journal of Travel Research and often attends key tourism and hospitality conferences, such as ENTER as well as the AIRTH conference and AIRTH innovation tracks at established conferences.