Dr Lisa Gorton, Course Director

Dr Lisa Gorton

Course Director

Lisa worked for 17 years in Industry before taking on her role at the university. Her experience spans small and large tourism organisations within the tour operating and retail distribution sector where she managed multi-million pound budgets and revenue streams.

As well as leading on the undergraduate tourism degrees at Leeds Beckett University, Lisa has recently been involved in the innovative re-design of the under-graduate degree programme. Here, she puts both her roles as an Associate within the university’s Centre for Learning and Teaching and Senior Fellow of HE Advance to excellent use, as well as her interest in critical and action-orientated pedagogies. She is a member of a variety of special interest groups within the fields of tourism studies and critical pedagogy and is always keen to hear about and share best practice in this field. Her current research interests include an investigation into constraints and enablers of course design within contemporary HE and Freire’s critical pedagogy.

Lisa teaches a wide range of management-related subjects at all levels of the course and regularly organises student-centred events where her students can meet and network with a wide range of industry partners. Her undergraduate programme won the student-led Course Team Of The Year award in 2016 and she was voted Course Director of the Year in 2020.

Current Teaching

Modules:

  • Management and the Tourism Workforce
  • Strategic Decision Making
  • Developing Professional Practice
  • Tourism Consultancy Ventures

Courses:

  • International Tourism Management
  • International Tourism Management with Marketing

Research Interests

Lisa's experience of the Course Director role is supported by her forthcoming doctoral research about the untested feasibilities for the tourism under-graduate curriculum here at Leeds Beckett University. Her applied approach re-imagines a curriculum space where praxis is encouraged and graduates are empowered to both challenge and tackle the status quos and challenges of the post Covid tourism industry.

Dr Lisa Gorton, Course Director