Rico Maggi,  IRE director

Rico Maggi is former dean of the Faculty of Economics and Professor of USI. He teaches microeconomics, international economics and tourism economics in the Faculty of Economics, and urban economics in the Academy of Architecture. Rico Maggi is director of the Institute for Economic Research (IRE) where he deals with issues on transport, urban and regional development, mobility and tourism. CV

Stefano Scagnolari, PostDoc and O-Tur manager

Born in Bologna on May 23rd, 1980, he has finished his studies at the Facoltà di Scienze Statistiche dell’Università di Bologna, receiving a degree in Statistical and Economic Sciences. Since 2006 he is working as research assistant at the faculty of economics of the Università della Svizzera italiana. In 2011 he received a study grant of the Swiss National Fund, which enabled him to specialize in his career at the Università of California, Berkeley. He received his doctoral degree in 2013 with a thesis about mobility and behavior of young people in their free time. The current research interests focuses on urban mobility and tourism economics, applying individual choice models and taking psychological aspect into account. CV

Igor Sarman, research fellow, O-Tur collaborator and teaching assistant

Igor Sarman obtained a Master degree in Economics at the University of Trieste (Italy) and afterwards he collaborated to a study on choice behaviour in a context of discrete choices applied to freight transport demand, and a research project dealing with topics of mobility and home-university route modal choice. Since February 2011 he has taken part in the Tourism Observatory of the Institute for Economic Research (IRE - Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland) dealing with the analysis of tourism demand and offer in the Ticino region as well as investigating on topics of general interest in the framework of regional accommodation and hospitality sector. He obtained a PhD in Economics in August 2016 at USI with a thesis entitled “Understanding the impact of risk perception in leisure tourism-related decisions and the role of attitudes and preferences”. At present, he is a Research Fellow at IRE and Teaching Assistant for the bachelor course in Microeconomics at USI. Since 2015 he has also been co-teaching the courses of Economics of transport and mobility in tourism and Statistics for tourism studies at the Fondazione Campus in Lucca, Italy (University of Pisa). CV

Eva Vroegop, O-Tur collaborator and programme coordinator interfaculty USI Master in International Tourism

Eva Vroegop is a PhD student at the Institute for Economic Research (IRE) of USI Università della Svizzera italiana in Lugano, Switzerland. In addition, Eva is the programme coordinator of the multidisciplinary USI Master in International Tourism, which is an interfaculty Master’s degree offered by the Faculty of Economics and the Faculty of Communication, Culture and Society. The USI Master in International Tourism offers two Minor titles – the Minor in Sustainable Management and the Minor in eTourism – and is entirely taught in English. Eva holds a Master’s degree in Economics and Communication Sciences – Major in International Tourism from USI, studied Tourism Management in New Zealand on top of her Bachelor’s degree in Public Management and Law at Tilburg University, and gained tourism work experience in the Netherlands. Eva is committed to her PhD thesis project titled ‘‘What remains from holidays? Willingness to pay, post-trip emotions, and revisit intention’’ (thesis defense: 30.03.21). Her current research interests include well-being (nature-based tourism and sustainable tourism); cognitive and positive psychology approaches to understanding tourist behaviour; travel products focusing on personal development; design thinking and tourism experience design; tourism economics (utility, preferences, constraints); and talent development in higher tourism education. CV