Jim Deegan, The University of Limerick

Jim Deegan is the Director of the National Centre for Tourism Policy Studies (NCTPS), University of Limerick (UL), a member of the Economics Department (Head of department, 2011-2016) ) and Professor of Tourism Policy. He is an economist by training and his research interests and publications are in all facets of public policy for tourism. Jim is a highly cited author in tourism economics/policy papers and he acts as a referee for all the top-rated international journals in tourism and has served on editorial boards of numerous journals that have included the Cornell Quarterly and Tourism Economics. As director of the NCTPS at UL he has raised more than €6 million through project research and philanthropic donations that has funded research scholarships for more than 25 students to study tourism at postgraduate level. Jim has undertaken project research on behalf of the World Bank, The European Commission, Eurostat, the Irish Government, Failte Ireland, Tourism Ireland, the Marine Institute, the Law Society and many other public and private sector organisations across the world. He was the project lead for the team that delivered Ireland’s first Tourism Satellite Account in 2004.

Jim has served on numerous public and private sector committees/boards on tourism issues over the last 25 years and was a founding member of the Business Tourism Forum of Fáilte Ireland from 2004 and was appointed to the Board of The National Tourism Development Authority (Fáilte Ireland) by the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport in 2013. He is currently a board member of the Birr Scientific and Heritage Foundation. Jim was the founding chairman and a shareholder in Treaty Radio Ltd that was sold to UTV PLC for €15.7million in 2002.