A.J. (Tony) Veal is Adjunct Professor in the Business School, University of Technology Sydney, Australia. He began his academic career at the University of Birmingham in 1968, moving to the then Polytechnic of  North London in 1980 and to UTS in 1986. He retired from full-time employment in 2003 but continues his relationship with UTS in the honorary position of Adjunct Professor. He is a past president of the UK Leisure Studies Association and of the Australian and New Zealand Association for Leisure Studies and a founding fellow of the World Leisure Academy. In 2012 he received the George Torkildsen Literary Award from the World Leisure Organization.

He is author of numerous books, including: Research Methods for Leisure and Tourism (E5, Pearson, 2018) and Leisure, Sport and Tourism, Politics, Policy and Planning (E4, CABI, 2017). His latest book is Whatever Happened to the Leisure Society? (Routledge, 2019). In 2015 he  authored a significant article on ‘Human rights, leisure and leisure studies’ (World Leisure Journal, 57(4), 249-72).