Faculty & Research
Liping Cai
Dr. Liping A. Cai is Professor of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Purdue University. He specializes in branding, consumer experieces and behaviors in travel and tourism, and community-based tourism development and marketing. He is director of Purdue Tourism and Hospitality Research Center, and a governor-appointee to Indiana Tourism Council. He is the senior academic advisor to Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Travel & Tourism Industry Center for the study of outbound China Dr. Cai is associate dean overseeing the Office of Diversity and International Programs in the College of Health and Human Sciences. He is also director of Purdue University China Center.
Dr. Cai is the author and co-author of more than 200 refereed papers published in scholarly journals and proceedings of international conferences. His consulting and research expertise includes destination and hotel branding, rural tourism development and marketing, and behavioral and psychographic profiling of tourism consumers. In the last 12 years, he has conducted over 30 tourist profile and marketing studies for tourism agencies and hospitality businesses. Dr. Cai serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Hospitality Marketing Management, Tourism Management, Tourism Analysis, and Journal of Vacation Marketing. He is North America regional editor for the Journal of China Tourism Research. He is also a reviewer for several other journals including Annals of Tourism Research, and Journal of Travel Research. He also holds several honorary faculty appointments at the School of Hospitality Business of Michigan State University, and four universities in China.
Dr. Cai served on the board of International Society of Travel and Tourism Educators (2002-2006), and as Travel and Tourism Industry Expert to the World Economic Forum (2005). He received Purdue University's designation of University Faculty Scholar in 2003. Dr. Cai was a former tour operator and destination sales manager in China.
Native of Jiangsu, China, Dr. Cai graduated in 1980 from China's first tourism program - Nanjing Institute of Tourism and Hospitality. He received his MBA from Michigan State University in 1993 and Ph.D. from Purdue University in 1996.