Professor Elisabeth Kastenholz is Associate Professor at the Department of Economics, Management, Industrial Engineering and Tourism, at the University of Aveiro, where she teaches Tourism and Marketing related subjects since 1994, also integrating the University’s Research Unit GOVCOPP (Governance, Competitiveness and Pubic Policies) and serving as Director of the phd Program in Marketing and Strategy. She holds a PhD in Tourism Studies, an MBA, a Licenciatura in “Tourism Management and Planning” and a bachelor in “Public Administration – Specificity Foreign Affairs” (Germany). She is member of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Tourismuswissenschaft e.V. and of  the Portuguese Society of Rural Studies.

She has coordinated and participated in 13 research projects, in the fields of accessible, senior, social rural, nature, cultural and sustainable tourism, innovative tourism education, cross-border tourism initiatives and regional development. Amongst her most important research initiatives are: the Erasmus+ project “E-Cul-Tours”- Managing Cultural Heritage in Tourism (2017-2020) (coordinated by Werner Gronau) – as local coordinator; her coordinating role in the three years (2010-2013) research project “The overall rural tourism experience and sustainable development of local communities’ and the on-going project ‘TWINE – Co-creating sustainable Tourism & WINe Experiences in rural areas’ (2018-2022). She has also been actively involved in supervising numerous master and doctoral projects.

Her current research interests lie in sustainable tourism destination marketing, the “overall destination experience”, consumer behaviour in tourism, sustainable tourism, accessible tourism, rural tourism and related topics like food & wine, slow and nature-based tourism.