Tina Šegota

Tina Šegota is a Slovenian academic and researcher whose work lies at the intersection of tourism, marketing, advertising, sustainability and social well-being. She is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Tourism of the University of Maribor and has also built an international academic career through her work at the University of Greenwich in London. She currently serves as Vice-Dean for Science and Research at the Faculty of Tourism. One of the most distinctive aspects of Šegota’s career is her interdisciplinary education. She holds two PhDs from the University of Ljubljana: one in marketing communications, completed in 2017 at the Faculty of Social Sciences, and another in tourism, completed in 2023 at the Faculty of Economics. This combination reflects the two major strands of her academic work—understanding how tourism destinations are communicated and marketed while also examining their broader social and economic consequences. Her research focuses particularly on quality of life in tourist destinations, including the experiences of residents and children. She also investigates destination advertising, marketing communication, place branding, place attachment, tourism seasonality and research methodology. Rather than viewing tourism simply as an economic activity, her research considers how tourism affects the people and communities who live in destinations.

Zoran Aralica

Zoran Aralica is a tenured Scientific Research Fellow at the Institute of Economics, Zagreb, and a visiting researcher at the Faculty of Public Administration, University of Ljubljana. He moderates the Croatian Network for Innovation Policy (HMIP), an informal group of experts from Croatia and abroad. It is organised on triple-helix principles and promotes industrial and innovation policy. His research interests include technology adoption, technological transformation, industrial policy, and foreign direct investment. His work has appeared in Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, European Planning Studies, and Post-Communist Economies. He has coordinated and participated in numerous national and international projects funded by a range of institutions and companies, including the European Commission, the Regional Cooperation Council, the World Bank, the Research Council of Norway, and the Center for Cooperation between China and Central and Eastern European Countries. Among these, the most significant is the Horizon 2020 project "Strengthening the Scientific and Research Capacity of the Institute of Economics, Zagreb, as a Cornerstone for Croatian Socioeconomic Growth through the Implementation of the Smart Specialization Strategy"