Tianchen Dai

Tianchen Dai currently serves as Associate Professor at the Future Design School, Harbin Institute of Technology (Shenzhen), after completing her postdoctoral research at TU Delft. Her research examines the intersection of cultural heritage, tourism, and urban identity, with particular focus on how cultural landscapes shape social perceptions and behavior. Born in Nanjing in 1989, she completed her educational journey through prestigious institutions, earning her PhD in Architecture from Southeast University, M.Arch from UCL's Bartlett School, and B.Arch from the University of Nottingham. Her work has garnered significant academic attention, with her research on Amsterdam's tourism marketing receiving over 100 citations. She has contributed substantially to understanding the relationship between heritage conservation and tourism, exploring topics from multi-sensory spatial experiences to UNESCO World Heritage impacts on urban morphology. As part of the Port City Futures project at Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Centers, she investigates how port cities' cultural and social identities are shaped and communicated. Her research spans various aspects of urban cultural studies, including city branding, spatial narration, and the intersection of heritage conservation with tourism development. Her recent work explores the complex relationships between authenticity in heritage conservation and tourist satisfaction, contributing to both theoretical understanding and practical applications in urban tourism management.