Dr Andrew Smith
reader in tourism and events, School of Architecture and Cities, University of Westminster; author, Events in the City and Events and Urban Regeneration

Andrew Smith is an urban geographer who specialises in research on urban tourism and city events. He read geography the University of Cambridge, before completing his doctorate in Sheffield. Andrew previously held lectureships at Sheffield Hallam University and the University of Kent, before joining the University of Westminster in 2004. He now co-leads the Tourism and Events Research Group at the University of Westminster which has a strong reputation for city tourism research. Over the past 15 years, Andrew has written extensively about the relationship between tourism and cities, including well cited work in tourism and urban studies journals. He has published work on London and other UK cities, but also on Barcelona, Valletta and Oslo. His city tourism work focuses on the ways cities are promoted and imagined as destinations, visitor experiences of urban areas and the development of tourism in urban peripheries. He is the author of two books: Events and Urban Regeneration (Routledge, 2016) and Events in the City and currently co-editing of a forthcoming book about the expansion of the visitor economy in London.

Follow Andrew on Twitter: @andrewsmithwest