Carol Kline is a Professor and the Director of the Hospitality and Tourism Management program at Appalachian State University. Her teaching and research interests have historically focused broadly on tourism sustainability, including topics such as foodie segmentation, craft beverages, agritourism, tourism entrepreneurship, and tourism in developing economies. However, she now gears her research solely on animal ethics within tourism, and she teaches a course called Animals, Tourism, & Sustainability. She is part of the Race, Ethnicity, and Social Equity in Tourism (RESET) initiative, which includes animals in the study of social equity. She is the founder of Fanimal Inc., an international non-profit that helps individuals find animal-focused and environmentally-focused careers. She is currently working with the UPLIFT program which supports community-driven tourism in rural North Carolina. For more information about UPLIFT, please visit https://www.uplifttourism.com/
Education
B.A., 1988, Psychology, Wake Forest University
M.S., 1995, Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management, North Carolina State University
Ph.D., 2007, Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management, North Carolina State University
Teaching
HOS 2000: Survey of Hospitality & Tourism Management
HOS 3100: Sustainable Tourism
HOS 3200: International Hospitality & Tourism
HOS 3300: Animals, Tourism, & Sustainability
HOS 3600: Attraction Management
HOS 4040: Destination Management
HOS 4500: Current Issues in HTM
Research Interests
Animals in Tourism; Animal Ethics; Animal Welfare; Animal Advocacy.
Recent Publications
Selected Animal Tourism Publications
Fennell, D. A., Kline, C., Mkono, M., Grimwood, B. S., Sheppard, V. A., Dashper, K., ... & Madrid, R. (2024). Tourism, animals & the vacant niche: a scoping review and pedagogical agenda. Current Issues in Tourism, 1-29.
Hooper, J. & Kline, C. (2024). Emerging Voices for Animals in Tourism. CABI: Oxford.
López-López, Á., Venegas, G. J. Q., & Kline, C. (Eds.). (2023). Tourism, heritage and commodification of non-human animals: a post-humanist reflection.
Kline, C. (2023). Centering Animals within Rural Tourism [invited chapter]. In H. Mair (Ed.) Handbook on Tourism and Rural Community Development. Surrey, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Kline, C., Hoarau-Heemstra, H., & Cavaliere, C. (2022). Wildlife Equity Theory for Multispecies Tourism Justice. Journal of Travel Research.
Hoarau-Heemstra, H. & Kline, C. (2022). Making kin and making sense of human-animal relations in tourism. Ecological Economics.
Kline, C., & Fischer, B. (2021). Morality on holiday: inspiring ethical behavior in animal-based tourism through nonmoral values. Tourism Recreation Research, 1-12.
Kline, C. (2021). Socializing animal-based tourism [invited chapter]. In Higgins-Desbiolles, F., Doering, A., & Bigby, B. C. (Eds.). Socialising Tourism: Rethinking Tourism for Social and Ecological Justice. (pp. 195-213). Routledge.
Rickly, J. M., & Kline, C. (Eds.). (2021). Exploring non-human work in tourism: From beasts of burden to animal ambassadors [edited book]. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG.
Kline, C., Rusher, RC. (2018). Between awareness and activism: navigating the ethical terrain of eating animals. In Bryan S. R. Grimwood, Kellee Caton, Lisa Cooke (Eds.) New Moral Natures in Tourism. Routledge.
Kline, C. (2018). Animals, Food & Tourism [edited book]. Routledge/Taylor & Francis.
Kline, C. (2018). Tourism Experiences & Animal Consumption: Contested Values, Morality, & Ethics [edited book]. Routledge/Taylor & Francis.
Additional information
Dr. Kline’s personal website
Title: Hospitality & Tourism Management Program Director, Professor
Department: Department of Management
Email address: Email me
Phone: (919) 306-1705
Fax: (828) 262-8685