Ivan holds a PhD in Economics; he is a sustainable tourism researcher with a special emphasis on cross-border tourism in Europe and Asia. Ivan has experience in leading an international tour operator company and aims to bridge the academic and business worlds together to benefit the local society. Ivan's research interests are sustainable tourism, innovation in tourism, tourism economy, cluster approach, cross-border cooperation with China, marketing. There is the debate on the uniqueness of places as the core product in travel and tourism and the notion of tourism destinations as spatially fixed. Places and their characteristics are unique and are not possible to relocate or entirely reproduce elsewhere. However, other researchers argue that places are increasingly being considered as mobile entities. The novel idea is the view upon places as mobile entities, through the technological developments on artificial and simulated environments, and their possible spatial implications for the people and the locations. The brief assessment of artificial environment entities from China simulating western culture and architecture will be given.
