Direction:Tourism
Position:Associate Professor
Lela Khartishvili is a geographer by profession. She has a Master’s Degree in Geography from Tbilisi State University. Her professional career began in 1993 when she was invited to the Technical University of the Humanities to work first as a laboratory assistant and then as a teacher. She has been delivering lectures on tourism and hospitality since 1995. From 1997 to 2006, she worked as a product development specialist for the Caucasus Travel company. In 2006-2012 she headed the Department of Rural Tourism of Organic Farming & Rural Tourism Network ‘Elkana’ and a rural tourism network was established in Georgia with her initiative www.ruraltourism.ge; Since 2010 she has been working as an independent advisor in the field of rural, agro and ecotourism. She has implemented projects with international organizations, including the World Wildlife Fund, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and others.
In 2013-2017 she was the editor of Travel and Trade Guide to Georgia. In 2015-2016 she worked as an invited lecturer at Ilia State University. In 2017 – 2020 she defended her PhD at the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences Austria and received a obtained her PhD degree in Social Sciences.
Scientific interests / research interests
- Social science
- Community-based tourism, agrotourism
- Transdisciplinary teaching
- Participatory practice and system development
Comprehensive List of Publications
L., Muhar, A., Dax, T., Khelashvili,. (2019) Rural Tourism in Georgia in Transition: Challenges for Regional Sustainability. Sustainability 2019, 11, 410 doi:10.3390/su11020410
Švajda ,J., Maláč,L., Khartishvili, L.(2020) Balancing development and conservation needs of stakeholders in the Tusheti Protected Landscape. Journal of Mountain Science, 17(3), 709-723 doi:10.1007/s11629-019-5490-z 27
Khartishvili, L., Mitrofanenko, T., Muhar,A., PEnker, M., (2020) Issues with Applying the Concept of Community-Based Tourism in the Caucasus Mountain Research and Development doi: 10.1659/MRD-JOURNAL-D-19-00071.
Keryan, T., Mitrofanenko, T., Muhar,A., Khartishvili, L.(2020) UNESCO’s Education for Sustainable Development Framework and the Reality of University–Community Cooperation in the Caucasus Mountain Region. Mountain Research and Development doi.org/10.1659/MRD-JOURNAL-D-20-00023.1
Gugushvili, T., Salukvadze, G., Leonhauser, I.U., Durglishvili N., Pavliashvili, N., Khelashvili, I., Saukvadze I., Khartishvili, L., (2020) ” Participatory policy review:“Supportive Tourism” concept for hand-in-hand rural and mountain development. Annals of Agrarian Science. Journal homepage: http://journals. org. ge/index. php, 17, 3.
Khelashvili, I., Khartishvili, L., Khokhobaia, M., (2020) Clustering the Problems of Sustainable Tourism Development in a Destination. Ankara Üniversitesi Çevrebilimleri Dergisi , 7 (2) , 83-97 https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/aucevrebilim/issue/51058/621229
Edited books / collaborative monographs
Develop and implement a transdisciplinary case study course. A guide for university lecturers. Prepared within the framework of the project “Transdiscipline for Sustainable Tourism Development in the Caucasus Region” CaucaSusT. 2020
Chapter 2: Challenges and Opportunities for Implementing the Transdisciplinary Case Study Approach in Post-Soviet Academic Systems: Experiences from Armenia and Georgia. Tigran Keryan, Andreas Muhar, Tamara Mitrofanenko, Kristine Tanajyan, Lela Khartishvili.
Book: Institutionalizing Interdisciplinarity and Transdisciplinarity. Collaboration across Cultures and Communities. By Bianca Vienni Baptista, Julie Thompson Klein). https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003129424
Tourism Policy Document 1. Khartishvili, L., Baumgartner, K., “Georgian Ecotourism Market Potential Analysis”. Basic document of ecotourism strategy. GIZ Private Sector Development and Technical Vocational Education and Training Program South Caucasus (PSDTVET SC), Tbilisi, July 2020.
Tourism Policy Document 2. Khartishvili, L., Salukvadze, G., Gugushvili, T., The potential of agro-tourism development in Georgia. A Joint Action for Women’s Economic (JAWE) – UN Women, Tbilisi, August 2020.
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