Kelly Bricker

Kelly S. Bricker, Ph.D., is an internationally recognized leader in ecotourism, nature-based tourism, protected-area stewardship, and sustainable destination development. Throughout a career spanning more than 25 years, she has worked at the intersection of academic scholarship, conservation practice, community development, and global tourism leadership. Her work is grounded in the belief that well-designed tourism can protect biodiversity, strengthen local and Indigenous communities, and create enduring connections between people and the natural world.

Dr. Bricker serves as the Watts College Endowed Director of the School of Community Resources and Development at Arizona State University and as Associate Dean and Director of the HNU–ASU International College in Hainan, China. She is also a Senior Global Futures Scientist at ASU and Professor Emerita at the University of Utah. Across these roles, she has advanced interdisciplinary education, research, and international partnerships focused on sustainable tourism, parks and protected areas, community resilience, destination stewardship, and conservation leadership.

A defining feature of Dr. Bricker’s career is her ability to connect scholarship with practical, place-based action. Her leadership with Rivers Fiji and the Upper Navua Conservation Area represents a particularly significant example. Beginning in 2000, she helped establish an innovative conservation model linking commercial river tourism with long-term protection of one of Fiji’s most ecologically and culturally important river corridors. The initiative created a conservation lease protecting an approximately 18-kilometer canyon while generating direct financial benefits for Indigenous landowners and surrounding villages.

Through transparent per-guest conservation payments, local employment, guide training, environmental education, and community partnerships, the project demonstrated how nature-based tourism can provide an economic rationale for protecting landscapes that might otherwise face extractive development pressures. Over time, more than US$1 million has been distributed to nine mataqali, or Indigenous landowning groups, and two villages. The Upper Navua Conservation Area has since become an internationally recognized example of tourism supporting conservation, community well-being, and Indigenous stewardship.

Dr. Bricker’s academic work similarly bridges research and implementation. She has authored and edited books, professional guidance, and scholarly publications addressing ecotourism, sustainable tourism, outdoor recreation, destination management, tourism in protected areas, and the relationships among visitors, communities, wildlife, and natural environments. Her current work includes examining the global impacts of wildlife tourism and strengthening the evidence available to conservation organizations, tourism managers, and protected-area professionals. She has also helped develop educational initiatives in nature-positive tourism that encourage future leaders to move beyond minimizing harm and toward actively restoring ecosystems and supporting biodiversity.

Her leadership extends to the global tourism and conservation community. As Vice Chair of the Global Sustainable Tourism Council, she contributes to international efforts to strengthen sustainability standards, destination stewardship, governance, and accountability across the tourism sector. She has also been actively involved with the International Union for Conservation of Nature and its work related to tourism and protected areas. Through these positions, she brings together governments, tourism organizations, researchers, conservation professionals, businesses, and communities to advance tourism practices that are environmentally responsible, socially equitable, and economically viable.

An educator, researcher, practitioner, and conservation advocate, Dr. Bricker is especially committed to preparing the next generation of leaders to address the complex challenges facing tourism and natural environments. Her leadership emphasizes collaboration, cultural respect, scientific integrity, and the meaningful participation of local and Indigenous communities. Whether working in a university, a protected landscape, an international governance forum, or a remote river canyon, she seeks to translate ideas into action and to demonstrate that tourism can be a powerful force for conservation, community empowerment, and positive change.