Ruizhe Fang: holder of UAB's first PhD in Tourism
On Thursday 16 September, in the Presentation Room of the Graduate School, Chinese student Ruizhe Fang defended the doctoral thesis entitled “Chinese tourists’ perception of destination, travel motivation, value pursuit, and their connections”, obtaining the maximum grade.
16/09/2021
The UAB School of Tourism and Hotel Management has conferred its first ever doctoral degree in Tourism, three years after the launch of this programme, the only one in the province of Barcelona.
On 16 September, Ruizhe Fang defended the doctoral thesis entitled “Chinese tourists’ perception of destination, travel motivation, value pursuit, and their connections”, obtaining the maximum grade.
The study reveals how Chinese tourists envisage Barcelona and why they come here, shedding new light on what kind of experiences the Chinese tourist is looking for, which allows us to design optimal products and services targeting this particular profile and develop strategies aimed at the Chinese market.
Ruizhe Fang graduated in Italian Language and Culture in 2015 from Xi’an International Studies University, and in 2018 obtained a Master's Degree in Tourism Economics and Management from Università di Bologna.
He was tutored by Jordi Rosell Foxà, a member of the InterAsia research group, of the Faculty of Economics and Business Studies.
The panel of examiners was formed by Juan Antonio Duro, of Universitat Rovira i Virgili, as president and, as members, Gemma Cànoves, from the UAB Department of Geography, and Mingge Tian, from the University of Barcelona.
Also in attendance was Francesc Romagosa, the Director of Research at the School of Tourism and Hotel Management, who stressed the importance of having conferred the first doctorate within the Tourism programme at UAB.