Lindsay William Turner

A good friend and academy fellow emeritus Lindsay Turner passed away on August 7th 2024 in Melbourne, Australia after a relatively short battle with cancer. Lindsay was a regular participant and contributor at Academy conferences over the years. He spent most of his academic career in the Victoria University Business School, Melbourne Australia where was a longstanding Professor of Research. He acquired his undergraduate and graduate degrees in geography at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia (PhD) and spent time as a Postdoctoral Fellow at The Ohio State University. Following his time in the US he opted to return to his native Australia where he spent his subsequent academic career. From his base in Melbourne, he built strong international connections notably through his work on tourism in Asia and the Pacific. His major teaching emphasis was on quantitative modelling and statistics. His application of strong quantitative technique skills to the cultural dimensions of tourism is a foundation of his scholarly contributions. His graduate students who may be found across the world received a strong training in methods.

Amongst his various publications were Asia Pacific Tourism Forecasts 2009-2011 (with Academy Fellow and frequent collaborator Stephen Witt) which he and co-author established as a keenly awaited annual initiative of the Bangkok-based Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA). Another of his fundamental scholarly contributions was the pioneering book Cross-Cultural Behaviour in Tourism (2012) (with Yvette Reisinger) https://books.google.com/books/about/Cross_Cultural_Behaviour_in_Tourism.html?id=7JkABAAAQBAJ. As well as pursuing scholarly pursuits and graduate supervision, Lindsay played an important administrative leadership role in business as the longstanding head of the School of Applied Economics in the College (Faculty) of Business and Law at Victoria University. He and his team pioneered many new business-related programs across Asia, notably in China, Malaysia and Singapore. He was a proactive leader in strengthening the Australia/Asia relationship though imaginative new program initiatives in international business and trade which developed scholarly networks and built research capacity through student scholarships.

Lindsay and I co-founded the journal Tourism, Culture and Communication in 1998 and he played a vital role in its development as the first tourism journal focusing on culture. Lindsay is survived by his widow Wendy Lyle and a large family of children and grandchildren. They enjoyed family life on a farm in Bacchus Marsh outside Melbourne and Lindsay and Wendy were heavily involved in the local community.

Lindsay’s former graduate students commented on his kindness as well as on his academic rigor. He combined the courage to adopt innovative and creative research approaches, supported by strong methods. His legacy lives on through a new generation of scholars and through his publications. Vale Lindsay Turner.

Brian King