IFITT is pleased to announce that Professors Cece Leung, Estrella Díaz and Luis Rubio Andrada will chair ENTER27.
The three chairs bring together complementary expertise across hospitality and event management, smart tourism marketing, tourism economics, digital transformation and data-driven destination management. Their diverse academic backgrounds, international experience and strong links with both research and professional communities will support ENTER’s mission to advance knowledge and collaboration at the intersection of technology, travel and tourism.
ENTER27 Chairs
Dr. Cece Leung is an Associate Professor and Program Chair of Event & Hospitality Management at the Kansas State University. She earned her Ph.D. degree in Hospitality Administration from the William F. Harrah College of Hotel Administration at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Prior to her appointment at K-State in 2025, she spent nine years at UNT and built more than a decade of professional experience in event, tourism, and revenue management, with roles in both the U.S. and China. Her research focuses on information technology, social media, hospitality management, destination marketing, and hospitality education. She currently serves as Deputy Editor for Tourism Review and Associate Editor for Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management. She also serves on the editorial board for nine leading hospitality and tourism journals.
Estrella Díaz is a leading researcher in the field of smart tourism marketing. She works as a Full Professor of Marketing at the University of Castilla-La Mancha. For almost 20 years, she has been focused on teaching and research in economics applied to marketing, new technologies and tourism. Estrella Díaz has been elected by the European Society for Opinion and Market Research as one of the 250 pioneering professionals and leading international experts in the field of market research and business intelligence in the world during the last three years. She has also been included again on the list of the 150 most influential people in tourism in Spain. Professor Díaz is a Full Member of the Young Academy of Spain, the Global Young Academy and the Academy of Social Sciences and Humanities. She is also a member of Science in the Parliament. As part of her research, she has published more than 50 articles in top international journals and has participated in more than 75 national and international conferences. Estrella Díaz is a member of many scientific and/or professional societies and committees. The quality of her research has been endorsed by 20 awards and distinctions. She has collaborated in the Smart Tourism Destinations project, funded by the European Commission, as a European expert. Currently, she is working as a tourism expert in the D3HUB project, co-funded by the European Commission, helping European destinations in data management. Professor Díaz has previously been a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Senior Global Fellow, leading a European Union Horizon 2020 project as Principal Investigator in the United States and Europe.
Dr. Luis Rubio Andrada is a senior lecturer in the Department of Applied Economics at the UAM, where he has been based since January 1987, teaching statistics on various undergraduate programmes—including Tourism, Aviation Management, Economics, Business Management and Anthropology—as well as on postgraduate courses. He has received positive evaluations for six teaching periods, three teaching periods between the 2013–14 and 2023–24 academic years with the highest possible rating, as well as three six-year periods (one of which was a transfer period), the last of which is currently active. His research career has focused on Sectoral Economics and Business Organisation in the areas of: Aviation Management, Tourism and the Economics of Technological Change. He is the Coordinator of research group E-024, “Research into Business Management in the Tourism Sector” (GIDEST), which was approved by the Governing Council of the UAM on 12 July 2007; since its registration, it was re-approved on 11 December 2018. He is also Chair of the Tourism Commission of the Spanish Association of Accounting and Business Administration (AECA). He has also served as Academic Secretary of the Faculty of Economics and Business Studies for three years, as Vice-Dean of the same faculty for three years, and as coordinator of the Bachelor’s Degree in Aviation Management from 2010 to the present day and of the Bachelor’s Degree in Tourism since April 2017.
Cece Leung
Estrella Díaz
