Meet our interesting speakers, chefs and panelists.
Diane Dodd is President and co-Founder of IGCAT (International Institute of Gastronomy, Culture, Arts and Tourism) as well as Executive Director and the inspiration behind the European Region of Gastronomy Platform and Award. The award is an instrument to support regional development by highlighting distinctive food cultures, educating for better health and sustainability and stimulating gastronomic innovation. Together with the first ten awarded Regions of Gastronomy she has pioneered the European Young Chef Award, the Food Film menu, the Local Food Gift Challenge and the Top Visitor Experience.
She is also Regional Adviser for the global network IFACCA (International Federation of Arts Councils and Cultural Agencies).She leads an MA course in Cultural Institutions and Policies for the International University of Catalonia in Barcelona, and an MA course on Events and Destination management for EUHTSTPol. She has been an independent evaluator for the Cultural Routes programme of the Council of Europe and editor of a number of Cultural Policy and Cultural Management publications for the European Cultural Foundation (ECF). She provided expert advise to Plovdiv and Valletta in the preparation for their respective bids to be European Capital of Culture.
Diane has worked in the cultural policy and management field for over 20 years and maintains relations with a number of important Global and European Institutions including UNWTO, UNESCO, European Commission, OEI, Commonwealth, Asia-Europe Foundation and many others. Earlier in her career she founded ConnectCP – an international online database of experts on cultural policy, planning and research which gave international networking opportunities to more than 1,200 experts from 128 countries and she co-authored the book entitled ‘a Cultural Component as an integral part of the EU’s Foreign Policy?’ – which looks at foreign cultural policies and the state of international cultural co-operation in EU member states and which led to this subject being addressed by Foreign Institutes at the Hague in 2007.
She obtained her PhD from the University of Girona in 2010.
Emanuela Panke, after a degree in communication sciences at the University of Rome and a master degree in marketing of agricultural products at the University of Siena, began her career in Paris, where she lived for two years working for an event agency and for the Italian cultural Institute. She come back to Italy in 2001 and she started to work as a freelance, in the consulting and training domain in the field of agribusiness marketing and become deputy director of the National Association of Wine Cities until 2006. Then she worked three years for Unione Italiana Vini for a promotion program of the European wines especially in third countries such as India, China and Russia managing training activities for buyers, customers and opinion leaders. Since 2010 she chooses to live in Sicily , after many years of activity in the Italian agro-industry, she decided to devote herself to the region which in her view has greater representation and untapped potential in foreign markets. She has been manager for Gambero Rosso culinary school and consultant for the Catania airport. Now she lives in Israel where she works in culinary tourism domain. she has been General Secretary of the Council of Europe Cultural Route Iter Vitis Les Chemins de La vigne from 2007 until 2019 when she become President .
Cláudia Ribeiro de Almeida is Professor of Tourism at School of Management, Hospitality and Tourism of the University of Algarve since 1996. She is the Tourism Course Director since 2017, where she coordinates recently the evaluation process of the degree.
Cláudia holds a PhD and a Post Doctoral Degree in Tourism (University of Aveiro), a MA in Total Quality Management (Universidad Politécnica da Cataluña) and a BSc in Marketing (University of Algarve).
She is a member of CinTurs - Research Center of Tourism, Sustainability and Well Being of University of Algarve.
Her current research interests include Air transport & Tourism dynamics; Second home tourism; Sustainability; and Decision making process.
Cláudia coordinates in representation of the University of Algarve, a Interreg Project - Best Med (Beyond european sustainable tourism med path) and belongs as a researcher to several others (CreaInnovation, HC Tourism, Access4all).
In the past few years Cláudia authored several articles and book chapters and present several communications in academic and entreprise events in Portugal and abroad. She is one of the editors of IGI Global recent publications (Handbook of Research on the Impacts, Challenges, and Policy Responses to Overtourism and Handbook of Research on Social Media Applications for the Tourism and Hospitality Sector), and Guest Editor with Alfred Quintano (University of Malta) of Sustainability – Special Issue “Overtourism, challenges and constraints for tourism destinations” (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/special_issues/td)
Greta Kresic is a Full Professor on Department of Food and Nutrition, Faculty of Tourism and Hospitality Management, University of Rijeka, Croatia. She received her BSc, MSc and PhD in food technology and nutrition from the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Food Technology and Biotechnology. The fields of her scientific interest are food quality and human nutrition. As an author or co-author, Professor Kresic has generated more than 60 peer-reviewed publications. She is the sole author of one book, co-author of another book and co-author of three book chapters. She has experience as a researcher on five scientific projects and two EU projects. She has won Annual award from the Croatian Academy of Engineering and annual award for teaching excellence from University of Rijeka.
Marinela Krstinic Nizic is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Tourism and Hospitality Management, Opatija, Department of National and International Economics, University of Rijeka. Her research interests include urban economics, spatial planning, sustainability, national economy and energy management in tourism. She is the Head of the Department for Micro- and Macroeconomics and Head of scientific project Sustainable Cities as Carriers of Economic Development. She is the co-author of many papers on economic issues and a member of "The Croatian Association of Economists".
