Cardiff School of Management>Staff Profiles>Victoria Richards

Dr Victoria Richards

Department: Tourism, Hospitality and Events Management

Office/Location: 1.57C, Ogmore Building, Cardiff School of Management, Llandaff Campus

Telephone: +44 (0)29 2020 5573

Staff Overview

I am originally from Torquay in the English Riviera and grew up surrounded by the sea and countryside. Moving to South Wales to study introduced me to a new environment where I have embraced the culture (over 30 years here) – including learning the Welsh language and of course supporting Welsh rugby. I’ve had a varied career including working in the tourism industry – in hotels, cafes, bars and visitor attractions, and later in the third sector as a volunteer, then in training development and social care. My particular experience has been working with and for people with vision impairments in areas such as personal rehabilitation training, conference organisation, student mentoring and awareness raising training schemes and design. Following this period of about 15 years, I undertook a PhD which explored issues around social justice and inclusion of vision impaired people in tourism, focusing on their in-depth experiences and the meaning of tourism in people’s lives. I have now been with Cardiff Met as a senior lecturer for the past seven years with teaching, supervision, research and pastoral responsibilities. I have experience of managing the tourism programme as a previous programme director and now have pastoral roles as year one tutor and personal tutor. Last year I was the proud recipient of the Victor Middleton Prize (Association of Tourism in Higher Education) for teaching and student engagement. In my spare time I play the clarinet and as an ex women’s rugby player I enjoy supporting Welsh rugby.

Teaching

Team teach across the department on a variety of tourism management modules including Visitor Attraction Management, Tourism for a Small Planet (module leader), The Tourism Industry (module leader), Diversity and social inclusion for THE (module Leader), Research Methods and Dissertation. I am a dissertation supervisor for undergraduate and post graduate students having supervised many students over the last seven years. I also supervise two Professional Doctorate students.

Research

Present research includes:

Accessible Technology Research – Accessible Apps Strand 1 – Advancing an understanding of universal design in tourist information systems of the general population.

Accessible Technology Research – Travel and Mobility Apps Strand 2 – A research project progressing the research findings from the study by Wales Council of the Blind into better App design focussing on travel information systems while also supporting universal design within a travel setting.

Accessible Technology Research – Robot Guides.

Advancing an understanding of marginalised groups in festival settings – ‘Festivals and Poverty’.

Key Publications

Richards, V., Pritchard, A., & Morgan, N.M., 2010. (Re)envisioning tourism and visual impairment. Annals of Tourism Research, 37(4), 1097-1116.

Richards, V., Pritchard, A., & Morgan, N.M., & Sedgley, D., 2010. Tourism and Visual Impairment in Tourism and Inequality, in Cole, S., and Morgan, N.M.,(Eds) 2010 Tourism and Inequality: Problems and Prospects. CABI. Oxfordshire.

Richards, V., Matthews, N., Williams, O. J., & Khan, Z. (2021). The Challenges of Accessible Tourism Information Systems for Tourists With Vision Impairment: Sensory Communications Beyond the Screen. In Eusébio, C., Teixeira, L., & Carneiro, M. J. (Ed.), ICT Tools and Applications for Accessible Tourism (pp. 26-54). IGI Global. http://doi:10.4018/978-1-7998-6428-8.ch00

Other Projects and activities

Student recruitment activities – taster and panel sessions with schools.

External Links

External Examiner Birmingham City University Habilitation Foundation Degree (vision impairment) 2015 – 2020.

Member of the Cardiff Airport Persons with Mobility Requirements Disability Forum.