Prof. Dr. Desmond Wee

At the university since

  • September 01, 2025

Focus on teaching

  • Global Education and intercultural engagement
  • Transversal competencies in interculturality
  • Experiential learning through participatory design processes
  • Project-based teaching and research-based learning
  • Cultural mapping and ethnographic method
  • Narrative approaches in Design thinking
  • Embodied learning and immersive experience
  • Creative worlding laboratories ‘outside of the classroom’:
    • Real-life coaching simulations (Management and HoTEL simulations)
    • Conferences (‘Touring Consumption’, ‘Picture Europe’)
    • Transformative experience in educational travel
  • New social contracts for education
  • Critical consciousness and future capabilities

Modules

  • Culture, Markets & Consumption
  • Cultural Turns
  • Introduction to Scientific Research Methods
  • Future Capabilities

Research interests and fields

Desmond Wee is happy to supervise BA, MA and PhD theses in the following areas:

  • Tourism practices and mobilities studies
  • Communication culture and leisure practices
  • Consumption theory and consumer identities
  • Heterotopias and third spaces
  • Everyday practice and urban geographies
  • Narratives, imagination and performance
  • Visual, reflexive and interpretive methodologies

Academic training and further education

  • PhD Tourism Sciences & Cultural Change, Centre for Tourism & Cultural Change (CTCC), Leeds Beckett University, UK
  • MA Social Science: Anthropology, International School for Humanities and Social Sciences (ISHSS), Universiteit van Amsterdam, NL
  • BA Communication Studies and Leisure, Tourism & Society Studies (Double Major), University of Calgary, Canada
  • Lee Kong Chian Research Fellowship, National Library, Singapore
  • Certificate of Professional Development in Education (PDE), Teaching and Learning Centre, Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Singapore.

Practical experience

  • Professor of Culture, Consumption & Mobilities, CBS University of Applied Science, Germany
  • Professor of Tourism, Director of Studies in Tourism Management, CBS University of Applied Science, Germany
  • Professor of Tourism Sciences & Spatial Theories, Head of Bachelor Programme, International Tourism Management (ITM), Karlshochschule, Germany
  • Visiting Professor, Institute of Entrepreneurship, Jagiellonian University, Poland
  • Assistant Professor of Sociology, Keimyung University, South Korea
  • Lecturer, School of Interdisciplinary Studies, Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Singapore
  • Advisory Board & Scientific Committee, Euro-Asia Tourism Studies Assocation (EATSA)
  • Coach:
    • WFI Ingolstadt School of Management, KU Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Germany
    • TalTech School of Business & Governance, Estonia
    • Birmingham City University (BCU), UK
    • CBS University of Applied Science
  • Conference Chair:
    • Touring Consumption
    • Picture Europe

Awards

  • Best Poster’ by UNITWIN UNESCO (2019) for Museum of the Tourist: An(other) perspective of European Heritage presented at the 6th UNITWIN UNESCO Conference in KU Leuven, Belgium
  • ‘FIBAA Premium Seal’ (2014)(Academic programme accreditation) International Tourism Management, presented at Karlshochschule International University, Germany
  • ‘Andre Jordan Best Paper Award’ (3rd) (2013) Advances in Tourism Marketing Conference (ATMC), for Singapore in Venice: Touring Spaces at Home, presented at the University of Algave, Portugal
  • ‘Jon Rieger Award in Visual Sociology’ (2012) International Visual Sociology Association (IVSA) for PhD thesis: Tourist from Here: Performance of Tourism, Home and Everyday in Singapore, presented at “Revisualizing the City” conference, New York, USA
  • ‘Young Leisure Scholar Award’ (2011) International Sociological Association (ISA) for Touring Home, Performing Identity: Leisure Spaces in Singapore, presented at “Mapping Leisure Across Borders”, Sociology of Leisure (RC13) in Palermo, Italy
  • ‘Best Paper Award’ (2009) International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research (IJCTHR) for Becoming tourist, becoming local: performing place and identity in Singapore presented at “Cities as creative spaces for cutlural tourism conference” at Boğaziçi Univeristy, Türkiye
  • ‘Most remarkable theses written in ISHSS history: 1997-2008’ (2008) International School for Humanities and Social Science, presented at Universiteit van Amsterdam (UvA), the Netherlands
  • ‘Academic Award in Teaching’ (2005) Ngee Ann Polytechnic (NP), Singapore
  • ‘Roy Fleshman Award’ (1996) University of Calgary (UofC), Canada
  • ‘Most Constituted Organization Award’ (1996) University of Calgary (UofC), Canada

Fellowships and Grants

  • ‘BISA Research Grant’ (2011-2012) Keimyung University, South Korea
  • ‘Lee Kong Chian Research Fellowship’ (2008-2009) National Library, Singapore
  • ‘Centenary PhD Studentship Award’ (2007-2010) Leeds Beckett University, UK
  • ‘Youth Expedition Project’ (2005) YEP in Ratanakiri, Cambodia. Singapore International Foundation (SIF), Singapore

Publications

  • Wee, D. (forthcoming 2025, at publication stage) Tourists of the Metropolis: Vertical recreation between West and East. In M. Gravari-Barbas, S. Jacquot, M. Jović & J. Novy (eds.) Tourism and/in the Metropolis: Exploring the Conceptual and Geographical Frontiers of ‘Metropolitan Tourism’.
  • Wee, D. & Walz, J. (forthcoming 2025, at publication stage) The pleisure of coaching in HoTEL management simulations. In D. Clayton, J. Gannon & A. Klenert (eds.) Coaching and mentoring in Tourism, hospitality and events (THE). Goodfellow publishers.
  • Bayraktaroglu, E. & Wee, D. (2025). Ethics and Morality Studies in Tourism Research: A Bibliometric Analysis. In E. Bayraktaroglu & B. Çıvak (Eds.), Modern Social Challenges Impacting Tourism: Ethics, Societal Disruption, and Intimacy (pp. 1-34). IGI Global Scientific Publishing.
  • Wee, D. (2024) There’s no place like food: instant noodles, instant elsew(here). In E. Park & S. Kim (eds.) Handbook on Food Tourism, Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 86-101.
  • Franken, M. & Wee, D. (2024) Na(rra)tion building: Tourism and geopolitics along the Belt & Road Initiative. EATSJ – Euro-Asia Tourism Studies Journal, 5(1).
  • Steinbrink L., Bartolomei A. & Wee D. (2024) Politicization of media consumption: Influence of touristic advertisements on young Russians and Germans on news media channels. EATSJ – Euro-Asia Tourism Studies Journal, 5(1).
  • Wee, D. (2022) Study abroad and the quest for an anti-tourism experience. Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change.
  • Arzbaecher, M., Sillanpää & Wee, D. (2022) Surrogate tourists on Instagram: An(other) kind of mimetic gaze. Tourism, Culture and Communication, 22, pp. 169-180.
  • Bieber, A., Gilde, W. & Wee, D. (2022) (Re)visiting spaces of home: German Heimat tourists ‘returning’ to Timisoara, Romania. In M.B. Duignan (ed.) Managing Events, Festivals and the Visitor Economy: Concepts, Collaborations and Cases, CABI, pp. 37-47.
  • Wee, D., Amato, A. & Schmitz, M.A. (2021) Where do the actors live? The Chinese tourist gazes in Hallstatt. Journal of China Tourism Research, 17(4),pp. 570-591.
  • Wee, D. (2021) Walking with the Little Prince in Busan: Paradoxes of culture making and place identity in a tourist slum. In S. K. Dixit (ed.) Tourism in Asian Cities, Routledge, pp. 226-248.
  • Wee, D. (2020) Revisiting ‘Singapore’ on Tour at the Venice Biennale. In P. Mura, K. Tan and C. Choy (eds.) Contemporary Asian Artistic Expressions and Tourism: Perspectives on Asian Tourism, Springer, pp. 105-126.
  • Wee, D. (2019) Generation Z talking: transformative experience in educational travel. Journal of Tourism Futures, 5(2), pp. 157-167.
  • Loutfy, D., Stuke, K. & Wee, D. (2019) Growing me growing you: Collaborative student fieldwork in tourism research. In H. Andrews, T. Jimura and L. Dixon (eds.) Tourism Ethnographies: Ethics, Methods, Application and Reflexivity, Routledge, pp. 142-156.
  • Küpers, W. & Wee, D. (2018) Tourist cities as embodied places of learning: Walking in the “feelds” of Shanghai and Lisbon. International Journal of Tourism Cities, 4(3), pp. 376-390.
  • Wee, D. (2018) Home Away at Home: Mediating spaces of tourism and narratives of belonging in the German Village of South Korea. In Kim S.K. and S. Reijnders (eds.) Film Tourism in Asia, Springer, pp. 221-237.
  • Wee, D. & Koens, K. (2017) 50 Shades of Hospitality: Exploring intimacies in Korean love motels. In C. Lashley (ed.) The Routledge Handbook of Hospitality Studies, Routledge, pp. 348-361.
  • Sonnenburg, S. & Wee, D. (2016) An Introduction to Touring Consumption. Journal of Consumer Culture, 16(2), pp. 323-333.
  • Sonnenburg, S. & Wee, D. (2015) Touring Consumption: Itineraries on the move. In S. Sonnenburg and D. Wee (eds.) Touring Consumption, Springer VS, pp. 9-20.
  • Wee, D. (2014) Performing national identities in spaces of tourism. Journal of Tourism and Development, 21/22(1), pp. 13-22.
  • Wee, D. (2014) Hospitality on a platter, in retrospect. Hospitality & Society, 4(1) pp. 93-98.
  • Wee, D. (2012) Touring Heritage, Performing Home: Cultural Encounters in Singapore. In L. Smith, E. Waterton and S. Watson (eds.) The Cultural Moment in Tourism: New perspectives on performance and engagement, Routledge, pp. 79-96.
  • Wee, D. (2010) In touch with my routes: Becoming a tourist in Singapore. Biblioasia, 5(4), pp. 10-14.
  • Wee, D. (2010) Carrying Gazes: Towards a reflexive visual Anthropology. Enhancing Learning in the Social Sciences, 3(2), p.12.
  • Wee, D. (2009) Singapore language enhancer: identity included. Language and Intercultural Communication, 9(1), pp.15-23.
  • Wee, D. (2009) Missing an Umbrella (Einen Regenschirm vermissen). In E. Annuß (ed.) Stagings Made in Namibia: Postkoloniale Fotografie, b_books Verlag, pp. 239-241.