Sean Gammon - Academic Staff

Dr Sean Gammon has been writing and researching in sport tourism for twenty-five years; writing and managing the first undergraduate degree programme on the subject. Sean’s research interests mostly focus on sport tourist experiences, though more recently he has been exploring the breadth and significance of sports heritage in generating tourism.

In addition to his work in sport tourism, he continues to contribute to the field of leisure studies, primarily focussing on the health-giving properties of leisure states of mind, as well as the use of leisure in education. Sean also supervises PhD and DBA programmes on numerous topics connected to leisure, heritage, leadership, sport and tourism.

Sean has published in numerous academic journals ranging across several disciplines and fields - connected to business, sport, tourism and leisure management, and heritage studies. He has also co-edited several books (e.g. Heritage and the Olympics; Contemporary Perspectives in Leisure; Landscapes of Leisure; Heritage, Sport & Tourism) and is currently completing (with Ramshaw, 2021) a text on Baseball Heritage, published by University Press of Florida. In addition to his research and teaching duties, Sean coordinates the undergraduate research modules for the division of tourism, hospitality and events, as well as being a research degrees tutor for the School of Business.

Before joining UCLan in 2010 Sean worked at the University of Bedfordshire as the Field Chair for Sport and Leisure Management (UG programmes), and the Programme Manager for MSc Sport and Leisure Management, and MA Sport and Society. In 2006 he was elected as staff governor to the University Board. Sean is presently a Reader in Leisure and Tourism Management as well as acting as a Research Degree Tutor for School of Business. He is an active member of the Business and Management Research Executive, the Faculty Research, Innovation & Ethics Committee and the College of Professors and Readers. Sean’s current external duties include various associate editor positions for the Journals of Sport and Tourism, and Frontiers in Sports and Active Learning.

He has also been a guest editor and co-editor for the International Journal of Heritage, The Journal of Sport and Tourism, and the Annals of Leisure Research. In addition, Sean has been invited to deliver courses and classes at a number of international institutions such the University of Manitoba: Sport Tourism: Fandom, Nostalgia and Pilgrimage, Stichting Hanzehogeschool Groningen: Sport Tourism Attractions, Wyższa Szkoła Turystyki i Ekologii (Poland) Sport Tourism Events, and Clemson University: Heritage Sport Tourism.

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Dr Gammon has published in a variety of formats, including several co-edited texts, journal articles, and numerous book chapters, and conference papers. The edited texts continue to be referred to in their respective literatures and have received some very positive critiques. For example, Sie and Pegg’s (2015:436) review of Contemporary Perspectives of Leisure: Meanings, Motives and Lifelong Learning, concluded: ‘While there have been many texts published since the 1970s seeking to outline, in some manner or other, the phenomenon of the leisure experience, few recent efforts can be compared to that of Elkington and Gammon’s edited text’.

In addition, Gammon and Elkington’s Landscapes of Leisure: Space, Place and Identities was found to cover ‘… considerable new ground in the under-studied area of space and leisure… These chapters look into the uncertainties, complexities, and disturbances of the modern landscape to produce a major advance in non-essentialist thinking about space-related leisure.’ (Stebbins, 2015). He continues to regularly publish in a range of peer reviewed journals, including those connected to sport tourism, sport management, leisure, tourism, marketing and heritage. Many of Sean’s research projects have gained considerable interest in the media – the most recent being the coastal tourism study (with Jarratt, 2017) that culminated in interviews with BBC1 Breakfast, Radio 4’s The World at One , and numerous local radio stations, and local media. The same research was also picked up by a number of care homes that are now considering using seaside nostalgia as a form of palliative care for patients suffering from dementia.

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Research Group Memberships

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Conferences & Events

Sean has presented at over 40 conferences and events – the most recent being:
May 2020, Gammon, S. and Ramshaw, G. The National Baseball Hall of Fame: Signpost or
Weathervane? The UCLan Centre for Business, Management & Enterprise Research Seminar
Series. University of Central Lancashire, Preston.
October 2018 Gammon, S and Jarratt, D. The Seaside: Beauty Surrounds, Health Abounds. LIFE Institute/ LSBE Collaboration Event. University of Central Lancashire.
April 2018 (Keynote speaker) What Quality? Whose Life? Exploring the Quality of Life
Landscape in Sport Tourism. STC’18 IRNIST Conference: Sport Tourism and Local Sustainable Development. MESHS Maison européenne des sciences de l’homme et de la société.
March 2018 Gammon, S and Jarratt, D. Keeping Leisure in mind: The intervening role of Leisure in the Blue Space - Health nexus. Collaboration and interdisciplinarity in action.
Presentation for the TH & E Research and Teaching Forum. University of Central Lancashire.
October 2016. Hickman, M., Gammon, S., Inkster, A and Rosser, S. Challenging concepts of savoring in adventure sports – some preliminary findings from climbers, cavers and sea kayakers aged 65+. Aging and Society. 6th Inter-disciplinary Conference. Linkoping University, Sweden.