Dr Milka Ivanova is a Senior Lecturer in the Centre for Tourism and Hospitality at Leeds Beckett University. She was awarded her PhD in Tourism studies by the University of Bedfordshire in 2012 for her research on The representation of Bulgaria in and through tourism: the dynamics of traditionality vis-a-vis transitionality. Her background is History, Sociology and Intercultural Communications. Currently she is the Secretary for the Research Committee on International Tourism for the International Sociological Association.