Connor Clark

Areas of Expertise

• Tourism development
• Destination management
• Community development
• Capacity building
• Sustainability
• Resiliency
• Natural resource management
• International and cross-border tourism

Professional Summary

As a new Assistant Professor in the Department of Hospitality, Hotel Management and Tourism, Dr. Clark is excited to bring his passion for pursuing solutions to major challenges facing the travel sector, educating young minds, and shaping future industry leaders. As an avid researcher, Dr. Clark’s scholarly endeavors focus on issues related destination management, sustainable tourism development, cross-border tourism, natural resource management, nature-based tourism, capacity building, and community development. Given how much of Dr. Clark’s research has focused on tourism sustainability and resource management issues in Latin America, the U.S.-Mexico border, and the American West, Dr. Clark feels right at home in College Station and the Lone Star State. In addition to his passion for research, Dr. Clark also enjoys interacting with students in the classroom and has taught myriad tourism, recreation, and hospitality courses, such as event planning, tourism management, heritage tourism, international tourism, financial and legal dimensions of recreation, recreation marketing, and diversity in hospitality and tourism.

Prior to moving to College Station, Dr. Clark spent one year as an Assistant Professor in the Recreation and Tourism Management program at Georgia Southern University. While at Georgia Southern, Dr. Clark enjoyed interacting with students on hands-on projects outside the classroom and even beyond U.S. borders. Before starting his work as a professor, Dr. Clark earned his Ph.D. in Community Resources and Development with a Tourism Management emphasis at Arizona State University where he obtained funding from the National Park Service to study tourism development and ecological restoration in the Arizona/Sonora borderlands. Predating his academic life, Dr. Clark worked in sales, leadership, and consulting positions in the U.S. and Latin America and is very proud of his work to empower small business owners in Peru.