Keynote Speakers


Maria Fonte 

The American University of Rome, Italy 

Maria Fonte is a Professor at the American University of Rome. She has extensive experience in research and teaching on topics in the field of Rural Sociology and Agricultural Economics. Her research activities are focused on agriculture, agro-food systems and rural development, especially in industrial and post-industrial economies. She has been the coordinator of research projects involving several European countries. Her publications are in the areas of the agro-biotechnological revolution, the turn to quality in agriculture, the role of local knowledge in agriculture and rural development, territorial policies of rural development, models of food consumption, civic food networks and local food. 

Francesc Fusté-Forné

University of Girona, Spain

Francesc Fusté-Forné is a Professor and Researcher at the Department of Business, University of Girona. He holds a PhD in Tourism (University of Girona) and a PhD in Communication (Ramon Llull University). His research is focused on food and rural marketing and tourism. Particularly, he has studied the connections between authenticity, food heritages and identities, landscapes and landscapers, regional development, rural activities, street food and tourist experiences. He also conducts applied research on the role of gastronomy in relation to mass media and as a driver of social changes. He has extensively published about these topics over the recent years.

Michael Hall

Canterbury University, New Zealand

C. Michael Hall is Professor Ahurei in Marketing and Tourism in the Department of Management, Marketing and Entrepreneurship, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. He also holds visiting professor positions at Linnaeus and Lund universities, Sweden, University of Oulu, Finland, and Taylor's University, Malaysia. Co-editor of Current Issues in Tourism and Field Editor of Frontiers in Sustainable Tourism he has published widely on tourism, regional development, global environmental change, sustainability and food and wine. He has a long history of working in food and wine tourism and the problems of rural areas, with his most recent book being The Sustainable Chef (Routledge, 2022, with S. Gössling). He also has a small farm outside of Christchurch primarily focused on nut production.

Elisabeth Kastenholz

University of Aveiro, Portugal

Elisabeth Kastenholz is Associate Professor at the Department of Economics, Management and Industrial Engineering at the University of Aveiro, where she teaches Tourism and Marketing related subjects, integrating the University's Research Unit GOVCOPP (Governance, Competitiveness and Pubic Policies) and serving as Coordinator of the international PhD program in Marketing and Strategy. With an academic background of studies in tourism management & planning, consumer behaviour and marketing, her main research interests lie in the fields of tourist behaviour and destination marketing, more specifically in sustainability-yielding destination marketing, accessible tourism, the tourist experience, rural tourism, food & wine, cultural and nature-based tourism and tourism-enhanced rural development. She currently coordinates the nationally funded project 'TWINE - Co-creating sustainable Tourism & WINe Experiences in rural areas' (reference POCI-01-0145-FEDER-032259).

Apostolos G. Papadopoulos

Harokopio University of Athens, Greece

Apostolos G. Papadopoulos is a Professor in Rural Sociology and Geography at the Agricultural University of Athens. He has coordinated as project leader, and also worked as a senior researcher in, several research projects financed by the European Commission, the Greek State and other organizations. He has published numerous papers in international journals. Currently, he is Editor-in-Chief of the international peer reviewed journal Sociologia Ruralis for four years (2020-2023) and Associate Editor of the journal NEW MEDIT: Mediterranean Journal of Economics, Agriculture and Environment. Also, he is member of the editorial board  of several academic journals in the fields of agriculture, migrations and rural studies. 

Elisabete Figueiredo

University of Aveiro, Portugal

Elisabete Figueiredo is a Sociologist with a PhD in Environmental Sciences. She is Associated Professor with Habilitation at the Department of Social, Political and Territorial Sciences, University of Aveiro, Portugal. She is a full researcher at GOVCOPP (Research Unit on Governance, Competitiveness and Public Policies). Her main research interests are related to rural sociology and rural studies; food studies;  environmental sociology; sustainable development; rural tourism studies and social perception of risk. She has been involved in several national and EU funded research projects, as coordinator or member of the research team. Currently she is the Coordinator of the nationally funded projects - STRINGS - Selling The Rural IN (urban) Gourmet Stores - establishing new liaisons between town and country through the sale and consumption of rural products (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-029281/ PTDC/GES-OUT/29281/2017).