Mafalda Patuleia has a PhD in Tourism from the Faculty of Economics at the University of the Algarve. She is head of the Tourism Department at Lusófona University. She is also a researcher with an interest in tourism destinations and hotel management. She has over 23 years of teaching experience and has produced research in the areas of creative tourism, lifestyle entrepreneurs, second homes, and competitiveness of tourism destinations, including book chapters, papers in academic journals and conference proceedings, case studies, and working papers. She is married and has a daughter. Her main hobby is traveling, and she's been to over 50 countries.