Dr. Xu Dong holds a Ph.D. in Human Geography from Nanjing Normal University, where he also earned his Master’s degree. He completed his postdoctoral research in Geography at Nanjing University and was a Visiting Scholar at The University of Hong Kong. He is currently a specially appointed “Young Top Talent” Professor, Associate Professor, and Master’s Supervisor at Yangzhou University. His research focuses primarily on the intersection of culture, tourism, and tourism geography, with particular interests in flow of space and big data applications in tourism, tourism economy and environmental impact assessment, and the cultural-ecological effects of rural tourism.

Dr. Xu has led over 10 research projects, including those funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), a major special sub-project of the National Social Science Fund of China (NSSFC) on heritage, the Ministry of Education Humanities and Social Sciences Fund, the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation, and the Jiangsu Provincial Social Science Fund. He has also been a core member of six general projects of the NSFC. In addition, he has led or participated in more than 40 planning projects related to urban planning, rural planning, and cultural tourism development.

He has published over 50 peer-reviewed articles in leading domestic and international journals such as Tourism Management, Tourism Geographies, Journal of Destination Marketing & Management, Journal of Environmental Management, Acta Geographica Sinica, Journal of Natural Resources, Geographical Research, Economic Geography, Human Geography. He independently published an academic monograph titled "Research on the Cultural Stress Effect of Rural Tourism Destinations". Dr. Xu was awarded the Second Prize of Jiangsu Provincial Outstanding Achievement in Philosophy and Social Sciences (as the first awardee). He was named a “CNKI Top 1% Highly Cited Scholar” for both 2024 and 2025. He serves as an editorial board member of the Journal of Researches on Dietetic Science and Culture, Secretary-General of the Youth Branch of the Jiangsu Tourism Society, and a peer-review expert for the NSFC.