Biography and expertise
Biography
Deborah Che’s research, grounded in geography, explores how economic restructuring drives shifts in land use, with a growing focus on tourism and recreation.
Deborah's work contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals
Research
Deborah has extensive funded research experience on the development and marketing of agritourism, which can be a way to help small to mid-sized farmers deal with the global restructuring of agriculture and peri-urban development pressures by selling local, quality foods and agritainment. Her other research projects have involved examining how shifts from industrial to post-industrial development and economic policy have led to the diversification of the use of local land resources from production (i.e. manufacturing, mining) to increasingly consumption (i.e., ecotourism, cultural/heritage tourism, hunting, arts-based economic diversification strategies).
Supervision
Deborah advises students on independent research and has co-supervised MA and PhD projects on topics including tourism workers’ quality of life in Bali, destination branding through cuisine in Malaysia, cultural heritage in Vietnam, tourism governance in Brazil, and linkages along the Southwest Michigan Wine Trail.
Teaching
At SCU, Deborah has taught units including Tourism in Pacific Asia, Gastronomic Tourism, The Cruise Business, Contemporary Hotel and Tourism Issues, Tourism Theories and Practices.
She has also taught human geography, environmental studies, and tourism units at universities in the US.
Other
She is on the editorial board of Tourism Geographies and the Journal of Rural Social Sciences and has served as Chair of the Recreation, Tourism, and Sport specialty group of the Association of American Geographers.