Dr. Mihee Kang is Director Asia-Pacific at Global Sustainable Tourism Council as well as serving GSTC as Country Representative for Republic of Korea, a GSTC Trainer, and Accreditation Panel member. She was the winner of UNESCO 2000 Young Scientists Awards.

She had worked for Seoul National University, researching topics related to protected areas management and sustainable tourism. She became the first PhD in the field of ecotourism in South Korea, and now serves a number of key positions in both domestic and international organizations: including the Korean Ecotourism Consulting Committee; the Korean Geoparks Committee and the Asian Ecotourism Network. She has been also involved in UNEP 10YFP Sustainable Tourism Programme in behalf of Korea Ecotourism Society.

In 2015 she co-founded Playforest, a cooperative of sustainable travel businesses designed to benefit local communities and local activists dedicated to the conservation of their forests and to provide genuine community-based natural tourism experiences to the visitors.

She has actively participated in numerous ecotourism and protected area projects abroad including Australia, China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Paraguay and India, where she help train TOFTigers PUG auditing teams to become Internationally Qualified GSTC auditors.

She has published many articles and books including the first ecotourism book in Korea titled ‘Ecotourism : Guidebook for Alternative Development and Management of Ecologically Sensitive Local Area’ and the recent one titled ‘Opportunities and Challenges of Ecotourism in ASEAN Countries’.