Recep Karaburun

Recep “Richie” Karaburun, aka Prof. K, is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Hospitality and Tourism at the NYU School of Professional Studies Jonathan M. Tisch Center for Hospitality and Tourism. He is currently pursuing his doctoral degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Marketing at the Lubin School of Business at Pace University in New York. He earned an MBA from the George Argyros School of Business and Economics, Chapman University, in Orange, California, in 2001 and a BBA in International Relations from the Uludag University, in Bursa, Turkey, in 1991.

With more than two decades of experience in the travel industry, Karaburun is recognized as an industry expert in helping travel companies start and develop a growth strategy and business. He has served on numerous industry panel presentations across a number of disciplines - sales leadership, marketing, hotel and other supplier negotiations, team building, leadership, and travel operations.

He has been teaching many classes at the NYUSPS Jonathan M. Tisch Center for Hospitality and Tourism since 2014, and at Fairleigh Dickinson University since 2016. Some of the classes he has taught are: Destination Marketing, Tourism Policy Analysis, Entrepreneurship, Business Development, and Strategic Brand Management. Due to his vast network in the travel industry, Prof. K is able to bring prominent hospitality leaders as guest speakers to his classes for students to gain insight from real-world stories. Prof. K also organizes interesting field trips for students to places such as Google Headquarters in New York, Argentina Tourism Office, Czech Republic, and Turkey Tourism Offices.  He last served as Managing Director, North America, of Roomer, an online peer-to-peer marketplace for travel. Prior to Roomer, Karaburun was Vice President of Global Supplier Relations at RADIUS, President at GTA North America, and Vice President of Product Development and Contracting at American Tours International, achieving high-value revenue and profit gains, gaining large-scale cost savings, improving organizational productivity, and performance at each. Prof. K's favorite TV show is "Shark Tank" and he incorporates elements of the show with some of the classes he is teaching at NYU, such as Entrepreneurship class.

Karaburun’s research interests include cultural differences in service quality, social connectedness in social media, how hotels use social media in customer engagements, the impact of nationalism in consumer ethnocentrism and the impact of culture in International Marketing and hotel distribution strategies in international markets. Karaburun lives in New Jersey with his wife and two sons.