Dr Ya-Yen Sun

Dr Sun’s research interests are associated with Tourism Economics. Her research has focused on the macro-level evaluation of tourism economic impacts and tourism environmental impacts to the country. Her work on tourism economic impacts is to use the input-output modelling to provide quantitative estimates on jobs, income and GDP with respect to changes in national tourism policy, market development or special events and disasters. Recently, she also expanded the impact evaluation to the environmental perspectives, quantifying the tourism carbon footprint and tourism water footprint in addressing challenges faced by destinations under climate change. In addition to macro-level modelling, her work also involves travel behaviours, transportation modes, and carbon emissions patterns.

She worked closely with federal and local administrators, including Taiwan Ministry of the Interior Construction Agency, Forestry Bureau, the Kaohsiung city government, and the US National Park Service. Her research projects include cases with Taiwan tourism policy, 2009 World Games, bilateral travel between Taiwan and Japan, Chinese outbound market in Taiwan, and national park management in the US. She provided consultation and policy recommendations to the managerial agencies of National Parks and National Forest Recreation Areas in Taiwan.

Dr Sun has published in top academic journals including Nature Climate Change, Tourism Management, Journal of Travel Research, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, and Tourism Economics. Before joining UQ from Taiwan in April 2018, She had 9 consecutive research projects with the Taiwan Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) (equivalence to Australia Research Council), and four governmental grants.