Dr. Chris Bottrill
Director, International of Capilano University, Vancouver, Canada
As the immediate past Dean of the Faculty of Global and Community Studies at Capilano University, current Dean of Fine and Applied Arts, and Director, International, Dr. Bottrill oversees a wide and complex portfolio of university internationalization, international projects and partnerships, tourism and hospitality, film, animation and design programming. He has taught a wide array of tourism topics including destination development, sustainability, marketing, and entrepreneurship at universities in Canada, New Zealand, the USA, and Austria.
Along with a PhD in tourism network and destination development from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, he has extensive applied industry experience having completed over 50 tourism management and development projects around the globe. These have included new product feasibility analysis, marketing strategies, resource assessments, and multiple stakeholder engagement processes. He has also presented on tourism-related topics ranging from Olympic preparedness to community tourism development at conferences and forums in China, Canada, Russia, Finland, New Zealand, Vietnam, Malaysia, India, and Cambodia.
Dr. Bottrill’s first experience with PATA was as a conference volunteer in Vancouver in 1995. He joined PATA in 2011 and has participated in a wide array of roles. He has served as the Chair of the Human Capital Development (HCD) Committee and Vice Chair of the Sustainability and Social Responsibility Committee since 2014, and he has also been a Trustee of the PATA Foundation for the past three years. During his tenure as committee Chair and Vice Chair, Dr. Bottrill initiated a revision of both committee terms of reference, rebuilt committee membership, and led the formation of action plans which have seen many initiatives begin and come to fruition. In his role as HCD Chair, he also facilitated highly successful Youth Symposiums in Phnom Penh, Chengdu, and Bangalore, Guam, Sri Lanka, and Macau.
Dr. Bottrill is also the Director of the acclaimed PATA supported Vietnam Community Tourism project aimed at protecting ethnic hill tribe culture through tourism, and last year he led a PATA study on Indigenous Tourism and Human Rights.