Prof. Dr. Leonardo Anthony Najarro Dioko

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Professor at the Institute for Tourism Studies (IFT) Macau and Director of IFT’s Tourism Research Center

Leonardo A.N. Dioko, Ph.D., or Don to many, is Professor at the Institute for Tourism Studies (IFT) Macau and Director of IFT’s Tourism Research Center (www.ift.edu.mo/itrc/welcome.html). Don lectures principally in the areas of marketing and management especially in the subjects of consumer behavior, research methods, tourism and hospitality marketing, service quality and strategic management.
From 2001 to 2007 Don served as the Academic Coordinator for all degree programs offered by IFT. Prior to his work at IFT, he was Lecturer in the Department of Marketing, Faculty of Business Administration at the University of Macau. Don obtained his Phd in Organization and Management at ISCTE (Portugal), his MSc in Strategic Management from the University of Macau, and his BSc in Business Administration at the University of the Philippines (Diliman). Don is a Philippine national.
Since 2003, and formally as Director of ITRC from 2007, Don has conducted a considerable number of policy research studies commissioned by the Macau S.A.R. Government or its agencies. These studies cover a wide-range of areas but are fundamentally related to Macau’s tourism policy development and social issues of significant public relevance. In addition to public policy research, Don’s scholarly investigations cover destination branding and tourism marketing, assessing and managing the impacts of rapid tourism growth, sustainable issues for cultural and heritage resources, and examining unique aspects of travel behavior and psychology.

In brief, Don’s body of work has thus far encompassed: (a) Higher educational administration and leadership in a tourism and hospitality context, (b) scholarly research and research administration, principally of an applied and public policy-influencing nature, mostly addressing the context of rapid tourism growth and sustainability, but also tackling emergent theoretical research streams in consumer travel and tourism marketing, (c) curriculum, program and institutional innovation, development, advocacy and service, and (d) teaching and developing courses in the fields of marketing and management adapted in the tourism and hospitality domains. (On a personal note, neither any of the above nor the vitae that follows compares to Don’s multifaceted and enriching experience of raising three rowdy boys alongside a lovely and caring spouse, which he considers to be his most challenging and full-time occupation.)