Dr. Kiran Shinde works on religious and cultural heritage, tourism, urban planning, destination management, and related topics. With five books and 70+ research articles published in high-ranking journals and books with reputed publishers, he is considered a leading scholar in research on religious, cultural, and heritage tourism and their intersections with urban planning and management. His books include Religious Heritage and Tourism in Asia (co-edited with Dallen Timothy, Routledge, forthcoming); A Research Agenda for Religious Tourism (2024, co-edited with Joseph Cheer, Edward Elgar); Religious Tourism and the Environment (co-edited with Daniel Olsen, 2020, CABI); and Buddhist Tourism in Asia: Towards Sustainable Development (2020, UNWTO: Madrid). He was the lead author and editor-in-chief of South Asia monographs for a UNWTO (World Tourism Organization) project entitled “Buddhist Tourism in Asia: Towards Sustainable Development”, which covers Buddhist heritage and tourism in 16 countries. He was a guest editor for a Special Issue entitled "Sacred Sites, Rituals, and Performances: New Perspective for Religious Tourism Development" for the open-access journal Religions. He is a former head of the Planning Program at La Trobe University, Australia. He holds a Ph.D. in Geography and Environmental Science from Monash University, Australia.