Conference Chairs

László Puczkó

László is Director of the Tourism and Leisure Knowledge Centre at the Budapest Metropolitan University of Applied Sciences. He has been working as a travel and tourism expert for over 20 years. He graduated as an economist specialized in tourism at Budapest University of Economics and following his interests in culture, arts and experiences, he also graduated from Art & Design Management of the Hungarian University of Applied Arts. He completed his PhD in 2000. He has become a Certified Management Consultant (CMC) in 2003. He was manager at KPMG TLT (EMEA) between 2001 and 2004. He founded The Tourism Observatory for Health, Wellness and Spa (2012).He participated in more than a hundred projects in research, planning, product development, experience mapping and design, impact assessment and marketing. László has been lecturing at various international professional and academic conferences. He is the (co-)author of numerous specialised books (e.g.: Health, Tourism and Hospitality, Impacts of Tourism) and articles in professional journals.

Melanie Smith

Melanie Kay Smith (PhD) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Tourism, Leisure and Hospitality at the Budapest Metropolitan University of Applied Sciences in Hungary where she specialises in cultural tourism and health tourism. She has worked for over fifteen years as a Tourism academic in both London and Budapest. She has been the Director of BA and MA programmes, has undertaken extensive curriculum development, organised, hosted or chaired several conferences and events, and has more than sixty academic publications. She has been an invited Keynote Speaker at many international conferences, and has undertaken consultancy work in a range of countries, including for ETC and UNWTO. She was also Chair of ATLAS (the Association for Tourism and Leisure Education) for seven years, a network through which she made numerous contacts in more than 75 countries. She is currently on the Board of EuroCHRIE.