New Faculty Spotlight: Tackling Societal Issues in Travel

Born and raised in South Korea, Soyoung Park, Ph.D., always enjoyed learning about the economy. She completed both her bachelor’s and her master’s degrees in economics from the Korea University, where she realized her passion for hospitality and the tourism industry. She earned her doctorate from Pennsylvania State University in the department of recreation, park and tourism management.

Now, an assistant professor in the hospitality and tourism management program at the College of Business, Soyoung uses evidence-based practices in her teaching, encourages her students to work with numbers, and discusses current issues in the field. She hopes her teaching and research bring more attention and awareness to solving social problems in the tourism and hospitality field.

Here’s a look at what Soyoung said about her journey to FAU:

Q: What sparked your research interest?

A: During my time at Korea University, I had a chance to work with industry and government agencies, such as The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and the Korea Development Institute. After working as a liaison for Dr. Taleb Rifai, former secretary general of UNWTO, during a UNWTO general assembly, I moved to Madrid to work as an intern in the Regional Department for Asia and the Pacific. After the internship, I participated in several government-funded projects that assisted the development of international trade policies in developing countries such as Kazakhstan, and the Caribbean islands. I also worked as an external consultant in the area of due diligence. All these experiences trained me to conduct research in a professional manner and to become a critical thinker.

After earning my master’s degree in economics, I decided to further my training in tourism and hospitality and started the Ph.D. program in the department of recreation, park, and tourism management at Pennsylvania State University. There, I was fortunate enough to work alongside top scholars in the field and received training to be a computational social scientist with training in both social sciences and data analytics. After graduating from Penn State with a doctorate in recreation, park, and tourism management and a graduate minor in social data analytics, I was hired to work at FAU.

Q: What is your research focus?

A: My recent research examines social issues in the hospitality and tourism industry using statistical analysis related to economics, called econometrics, and other advanced data analytics tools. Currently, I am working on three projects: examining international volunteer tourism in orphanages, human trafficking issues within the hospitality and tourism industry, and the Black travel movement. All three studies utilize online data sources, such as social media, as well as surveys and /interviews.

My research also involves understanding the benefits of travel and the effective management of destinations, like U.S. national parks. In a recent publication, I forecasted future camping demands for U.S. national parks. This can help the National Park Service better manage their facilities and reservation system. In another recent study, I examined the influence of family trips on children’s early academics achievement examined and identified their next non-stop destinations using mobile and web data.

Q: Why does this research matter to you?

A: My personal mission is to better the lives of children and minorities through education and research. However, when it comes to tourism research, children and minorities are often neglected. Whenever I can, I try to identify social issues involving these demographics and bring attention to them. The three social issues mentioned in my previous answer, orphanage tourism, human trafficking and the Black travel movement matter to me because of personal experience. Volunteering at orphanages can be detrimental to the children since volunteers are not trained nor screened to care for vulnerable children. Also, children are placed in orphanages unnecessarily — and sometimes even recruited from their families for monetary compensation — for international volunteers. But the orphanage setting can be damaging for the children due to lack of parent figures, lack of individual attention, and high abuse.

When I dove into the issue of orphanage tourism, I found out that it is highly connected to human trafficking in the hospitality and tourism industry. My colleagues and I are trying to build effective campaign messages that can be utilized in the industry to fulfill their responsibility to the society, as well as benefit their brand.

Q: Do you have any advice for becoming a researcher in your field?

A: I would suggest that one should be trained in several disciplines and always keep up with the trend. The hospitality and tourism industry is a highly practical and interdisciplinary field that includes businesses, individuals, communities, governments and the environment. Also, it’s constantly changing with societal and technological development. You need to apply diverse lenses to understand the field and be up to date with the changes in the world.

Q: Where do you see your research continuing in the future?

A: Since research regarding orphanage tourism and human trafficking is scarce, I hope to continue to scrutinize those issues in more detail. At the same time, I would like to examine the benefits of travel for children more in-depth. I plan to take a mixed methods approach for my future research. Though recent technological advancement has provided us with infinite opportunities with expansive data and effective analytic tools, I believe that you still need to listen to people in our field.

Q: What is an interesting fact that people at FAU may not know about you?

A: Throughout my life, I have lived in five countries so far: Canada, France, Korea, Spain, and the United States. I also speak three languages, Korean, English and French. I have a cat named Doctor. I adopted him when I started graduate school and thought he might get a doctoral degree before I finished mine.