Dr Alastair Watson is a Scottish academic who has spent the last ten years in academia developing and delivering higher education programs globally. Originally coming from a management career in the hospitality industry, Alastair has a keen interest in the hotels, restaurants, and leisure sectors, and also in the resilience of SMEs and the entrepreneurs who create them.  In his more recent academic life, he’s worked in well-known and established Scottish and Australian universities, both back home in Scotland and in the sunshine of Dubai.

Alastair has always worked from high school onwards, from a weekend job making picture frames to working in the family newsagent and fancy goods shop – and, being a country boy at heart, in small country hotels in a pretty part of Scotland – he ended up running one!  His own varied employment experience has helped him to appreciate the need for work experience and how to understand the different people that you experience in life.  Having started his learning experiences in the SVQ system, he knows that everyone is different and learns differently. This approach to teaching and assessing is what has drawn him to become part of the AOEE team – the wish to help students to understand, visualise, and apply their new knowledge in a practical manner that will allow them to see the real value back in the workplace.