Peter Varga , PhD
Qualification(s)
Function
Teaching Location(s)
Courses taught
• Corporate Sustainability
• Gestion de la responsabilité sociétale de l’entreprise
• Sustainability transitions and Innovation in business
MASTER IN HOSPITALITY MANAGEMENT
• Foundations of Sustainability
Area(s) of Expertise
Cultural intelligence
Sociocultural sustainability
Sustainable hospitality culture
Tourism development
Short Bio
Peter Varga, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at the EHL. His research interests center on sustainable sociocultural dynamics of current tourism practices in host societies; cultural intelligence in intercultural service encounters; and symbolism in food and eating habits from a cultural perspective.
He earned a Doctor in Social Sciences, Specialisation in Anthropology of Tourism, from the University of Guadalajara and Master of Arts in Sociology with an emphasis in Economy and Society, from the Central European University and University of Lancaster. He lives in the Geneva area with his wife and his two children.
Publications in Peer-Reviewed Journals
Laaksonen, S. and Varga, P. (2024). Assessing the impact of selfie-taking tourists on local tour guides in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone: A netnographic analysis of a dark tourism location. Journal of Heritage Tourism, 19(3), 331-346.
Zizka, L., & Varga, P. (2021). Teaching sustainability in higher education institutions: Assessing hospitality students’ sustainability literacy. Journal of hospitality & tourism education, 33(4), 242-257.
Martin-Rios, C., Zizka, L., Varga, P., & Pasamar, S. (2020). KITRO: Technology solutions to reduce food waste in Asia-Pacific hospitality and restaurants. Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research, 25(10), 1128-1135.
Terrier, L., Varga, P. Scaroni, A., & Zizka, L. (2020). To go or not to go, that is the question: Using social influence to reduce hot beverage cup waste, Journal of Foodservice Business Research, 23(4), 350-357.
Leroy, P., & Varga, P. (2019). The symbolic understanding of milk in Swiss gastronomy. Research in Hospitality Management, 9(1), 25-34.
Worwag, S., Varga, P., & Zizka, L. (2019). Tourists’ Ethical Concern for Dumbo: Elephant Tourism in Thailand. Journal of Travel, Tourism and Recreation, 1(2), 17-27.
Haslebacher, C., Varga, P. & Murphy, H.C. (2019). Insights from images posted on social media: Examining the motivations of volunteer tourists. Journal of Human Resources in Hospitality & Tourism, 18(2), 259-273.
Varga, P., & Binder, A. (2015). Sociocultural Hurdles of Sustainable Hospitality Management. Asia-Pacific Journal of Innovation in Hospitality and Tourism, 4(1), 77-92.
Funded Research Projects
Awards
Outstanding Paper Award Runner-Up for "A modified value chain analysis of tourism development in the Inlay Lake region, Myanmar", Conference Proceedings of BEST EN Think Tank XV (2015)