Facilitators

Indigenous Communities, Tourism and Biodiversity Workshop Series:
New Information and Web-based Technologies - Workshop II: Islands Pacific Region
3-5 November 2008, Samoa

Chantal Robichaud joined the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity in 2007 and is based in Montreal, Canada, where she works mainly on issues related to sustainable tourism. Chantal has worked as a United Nations Volunteer within the governance unit of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Tunisia and as a research assistant at the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). She also worked in West Africa as a project officer at the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre and as a college teacher of Political Science in Montreal.

Dr John S. Hull is an Associate Director and Senior Lecturer at the New Zealand Tourism Research Institute based at AUT University, Auckland, New Zealand. In 1998, John completed his Ph D. in tourism geography at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. His present research addresses sustainable tourism in peripheral regions with a specific focus on strategic planning and management as well as community-based tourism development. John has worked on tourism projects in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Past clients include the UNWTO, UNCBD, UNEP, UNESCO, World Bank, Nordic Council, European Tourism Research Institute, Commission on Environmental Cooperation, Canadian Tourism Commission, Tourism Atlantic, and Parks Canada. John is also a guest professor at the Icelandic Tourism Research Centre, Akureyri, Iceland.

Carolyn Nodder is Senior Research Officer at the New Zealand Tourism Research Institute. Her experience includes 12 years in the New Zealand Travel and Tourism industry, where she has gained a rich insight into the effective application of new technologies in the airline, travel agency and tourism sectors. She is an experienced educator, consultant, trainer and facilitator and has run workshops for business and community organisations. Carolyn has been a member of a number of commercial research and evaluation projects in New Zealand, the South Pacific and Canada and has developed and delivered training and workshop programmes for groups based in the South Pacific, Vietnam, Chile, and New Zealand. Her PhD research is focused on the role of information and communication technologies in tourism network formation and is situated in the small rural community of Western Southland, NZ.

Nathaniel Dobbin is a Research Officer and Web Developer at the New Zealand Tourism Research Institute(NZTRI). He joined NZTRI in 2004 with the initial focus of developing online survey tools to aid NZTRI in collecting research data. Work expanded to a series of other web projects such as the SPTO Tourism Toolkit, the Western Southland website, Manurewa Marae community site as well as the main NZTRI website www.nztri.org. His primary interest is in web technologies and online data collection. Other technical interests include Geographic Information Systems (GIS) an area in which he is currently taking a paper at Auckland University of Technology. Prior to working at NZTRI, he worked at Telecom NZ supporting a wide range of online services. Outside of work and technology he enjoys many sports,with akeen interest inmountain biking and football.

Professor Simon Milne is Professor of Tourism at the Auckland University of Technology, where he directs the New Zealand Tourism Research Institute (www.nztri.org). Simon hasworked in Pacific tourism since 1986and has travelled to most of thenations in the region.Much of Simon's research has focused on the links between information technology, tourism and sustainable development. Simon has worked as a consultant for a range of international organizations including the United Nations Development Program, UNESCAP, the World Tourism Organisation, the European Union, Luxembourg Development, CIDA and the Organisation of American States.