After several years in the tourism industry, Graham Busby joined Plymouth University in 1994 where he helped establish the BSc and MSc in Tourism Management. A number of PhD candidates were also supervised during this time. Industry liaison formed a key part and resulted in twelve month sandwich placements around the world. This led to publications concerning tourism management education. Partly influenced by this, he was appointed a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Running alongside teaching duties, he acted as a reviewer for thirty-three peer-reviewed journals and sat on a range of committees and boards.

Some of his research interests addressed literary or film tourism and a number of genres have been examined using a range of methodologies and innovative approaches. Since the 1998 Daphne du Maurier literary festival, a substantial body of published work has been established. As examples, resident research from Agatha Christie Country was followed by a survey of visitors to The Tailor of Gloucester, the shop based on Beatrix Potter’s children’s novel. Netnography was used for research into the effect of Winston Graham’s twelve Poldark novels with a conventional on-site survey at poet Lord Byron’s ancestral home, Newstead Abbey.

The first research concerning film tourism appeared in 2001 and reported the influence of Notting Hill on visitors to the area of central London. Steven Spielberg’s 2011 film War Horse was a feature of location research. Other research has examined the pre-production angle of a film yet to be made and considered literary and film tourism jointly via the impact of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin.