MTRC Director

"After several decades conducting and directing research about the social, environmental, and economic impacts of tourism on destination communities, I have concluded that the tourism engine is greatly underutilized.  I firmly believe the tourism industry can be a powerful force for enhancing the triple bottom line."

Tim Tyrrell, Ph.D.

Tim Tyrrell is a Ph.D. economist who for three decades has specialized in tourism economy. He is a member of the International Association of Scientific Experts in Tourism and serves on boards of directors for the Travel and Tourism Research Association and the International Association of Tourism Economists.

Dr. Tyrrell started at ASU’s School of Community Resources and Development in 2005. He served as associate dean of the College of Public Programs from 2006-2007.  He heads the Tourism and Management Program and became founder and director of the Megapolitan Tourism Research Center in 2007.

Dr. Tyrrell taught at the University of Rhode Island from 1978 to 2005, and left as an Emeritus Professor.  He received a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from Cornell University in 1979.

In the past twenty-seven years, he has conducted tourism research studies in the United States and overseas, served as an advisor to state agencies, and published papers on the economics of tourism.  He led a major study in France about the impact of pollution on the tourism industry, and one in Thailand on the mismanagement of natural resources related to tourism.  He developed programs to monitor the tourism industries of Alaska, Connecticut, Rhode Island, South Carolina, the province of Nova Scotia, and Sergipe, Brazil.  He studied the fly-fishing industry’s impact on the city of Roscoe, New York and analyzed the economic role of scenic byways in Vermont.

Research History

Most of Dr. Tyrrell’s work over the past thirty years has been to determine the economic impact of tourism on various communities.  However, almost every economic research project has revealed environmental, social and economic issues beyond the scope of the research that were of much greater importance .  A broad, transdisciplinary approach to the dynamics of community development and the role of tourism in this development is clearly needed.

Please click here to learn more about Dr. Tyrrell's research projects.