Dr Simon Kimber

Senior Lecturer in Tourism Marketing, Business

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Office 309 - 309
Third Floor
School of Management
Bay Campus

Available For Postgraduate Supervision

Research Links

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6209-2225

Scopus

About

Dr Simon Kimber is Senior Lecturer in Tourism and Marketing at the School of Management. Simon serves as Programme Director for MSc Strategic Marketing.

Simon Kimber holds a PhD in Hospitality and Tourism Management from the University of Surrey. His research interests include a strong interest in Critical tourism theory (performance and performativity) as well as tourist photography and Chinese independent travelers, backpacker tourism.

Simon has extensive experience of researching and working in Asia, in particular in China. Simon has just returned from spending the last three years working in Dalian in northeast China at the University of Surrey’s joint international campus, Surrey International Institute.

Areas Of Expertise

Critical tourism theory – Performance and Performativity
Tourist Photography and tourism performances
Chinese independent travellers and backpackers
Destination Marketing
Qualitative research methods

Career Highlights

Teaching Interests

Taught modules

MN-M054 Marketing Tourism Experiences

MN-M593 Digital Tourism

MN-2062 Visitor Experience Design and Management

Publications

Research Highlights

Thomopoulos, N., Cohen, S., Hopkins, D., Siegel, L., & Kimber, S. (2021). All work and no play? Autonomous vehicles and non-commuting journeys. Transport Reviews, 41(4), 456-477.
https://doi.org/10.1080/01441647.2020.1857460, SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa64145
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01441647.2020.1857460
Kimber, S., Siegel, L., Cohen, S., Thomopoulos, N., & Kimber, S. (2020). The wider use of autonomous vehicles in non-commuting journeys. Advances in Transport Policy and Planning (pp. 125-148). Elsevier
https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.atpp.2020.02.003, SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa64146
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/bs.atpp.2020.02.003
Kimber, S., Yang, J., & Cohen, S. (2019). Performing love, prosperity and Chinese hipsterism: Young independent travellers in Pai, Thailand. Tourist Studies, 19(2), 164-191.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1468797619833367, SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa64147
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1468797619833367
Kimber, S. (2020). Restarting tourism: the need for tourism stakeholders to better understand culturally influenced patterns of tourism production and consumption: a performance perspective. In The 4th DUFE-Surrey Workshop. Tourism during challenging time
SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa64148
Kimber, S. (2020). The embodied gazes of young Chinese independent travellers and professional hosts: a performance perspective.
SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa64149

All Research

Journal Articles

Thomopoulos, N., Cohen, S., Hopkins, D., Siegel, L., & Kimber, S. (2021). All work and no play? Autonomous vehicles and non-commuting journeys. Transport Reviews, 41(4), 456-477.
https://doi.org/10.1080/01441647.2020.1857460, SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa64145
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01441647.2020.1857460
Kimber, S., Yang, J., & Cohen, S. (2019). Performing love, prosperity and Chinese hipsterism: Young independent travellers in Pai, Thailand. Tourist Studies, 19(2), 164-191.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1468797619833367, SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa64147
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1468797619833367

Book Chapters

Kimber, S., Siegel, L., Cohen, S., Thomopoulos, N., & Kimber, S. (2020). The wider use of autonomous vehicles in non-commuting journeys. Advances in Transport Policy and Planning (pp. 125-148). Elsevier
https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.atpp.2020.02.003, SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa64146
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/bs.atpp.2020.02.003

Conference Contributions

Kimber, S. (2020). Restarting tourism: the need for tourism stakeholders to better understand culturally influenced patterns of tourism production and consumption: a performance perspective. In The 4th DUFE-Surrey Workshop. Tourism during challenging time
SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa64148

Other Research Outputs

Kimber, S. (2020). The embodied gazes of young Chinese independent travellers and professional hosts: a performance perspective.
SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa64149

Taught Modules

MN-2062 Visitor Experience Design and Management

Today, consumers search for extraordinary and memorable experiences. However, rapidly changing marketplaces and technologies present opportunities and challenges to tourism mangers, who must create, deliver, assess and redesign impactful visitor experiences. This module will examine the dynamics of tourism experiences, and equip students with relevant skills to design and critique design and management initiatives for visitors from multiple cultural contexts.
MN-2564 Tourism in Practice

Tourism development brings a range of marketing challenges and impacts that may be observed first-hand. This course combines a discussion of tourism development and marketing with a visit to a tourism destination. Students will investigate the destination development and interact with relevant tourism operators, marketers and policy makers. This will provide students with the opportunity to observe destination management issues first hand and to assess career options in the sector. There is also opportunity for students to practice research skills in this environment.
MN-M054 Marketing Tourism Experiences

This module considers the challenges of marketing tourism experiences and the benefits to be gained from developing and implementing well-informed and well-designed marketing strategies. Marketing plays a key role in any organisation that measures it success through identification of the specific needs of its target audience(s) and to guide the design and delivery of products to meet those needs. In the tourism context, it is increasingly being recognised that these products are not only service-based but also highly multi-part, complex and co-created, involving the delivery of experiences to a wide audience within the context of multi-stakeholder tourist destinations. This implies the need to engage in effective relationship marketing, with both guests and hosts. Meanwhile strong brands are typically needed to gain the attention and loyalty of an increasingly well-informed, sophisticated and fickle tourist customer base. The international dimension is also increasingly important in marketing tourism experiences and marketing strategies need to incorporate multi-cultural understandings.
MN-M582 Tourism Study Tour

Tourism development brings a range of challenges and impacts that may only be observed first hand. This course combines a discussion of tourism development with a visit to a tourism destination. Students will investigate the destination development and interact with relevant tourism operators, marketers and policy makers. Students will also interact with the host community and develop tools for community-based tourism in a problem-based learning scenario.
MN-M593 Digital Tourism

Digital tourism can be defined as the design, implementation and application of information technology solutions and e-commerce in the field of tourism. It includes the analysis of the processes involved (such as `peer-to-peer¿ sharing), the implications for market structure, conduct and performance, customer relationship management and other business elements that can be transformed by digital technology. Digital or `smart¿ technology is also used in the delivery of destination experiences and the use of digital assistive technologies for tourists with disabilities.

Key Grants and Projects

“the spatio-temporal difference of backpacker travelers and its acting mechanisms from a mobility perspective" 2021 - 2023

, with Dr Xuan (Angela) Zhu, Shanghai Normal University, Prof Dallen Timothy, Arizona State University, RMB 550,000