Xavier's background is marketing. He is interested in entrepreneurial ways to change business practice by providing market-led product development opportunities to industry. In the 1990s he worked for large EU programme to promote forest tourism and recreation as an alternative and complement to felling and to increase tree planting. He has written since for WWF on Pay per nature view, methods to generate funds for protected areas from tourism and contributed to the European PAN Parks programme.
 
Certification is Xavier's area of unique expertise. Xavier was the main contractor for the feasibility study for the Sustainable Tourism Stewardship Council for Rainforest Alliance, and later co-authored the feasibility of the fair trade tourism label for the Fair Trade Labelling Organisation. He co-authored studies for the UNWTO on using sustainability standards for the purpose of multi-lateral trade negotiations, for UNEP assessing the status of certification as a sector, for UNCTAD on using certification to promote sustainable change in the least developed countries. He is the most published academic in the world on sustainable tourism certification, more recently publishing critical accounts on the pitfalls of certification in order to influence change. He is currently contracted by Visit Britain to accredit certification programmes in the UK in order to provide an independent assessment that allows Visit Britain to provide marketing benefits for accredited organisations, as well as to raise the standards of aspiring certification programmes.
 
Xavier has a special interest in tour operations. He supported academically the development of the Tour Operators Initiative for Sustainable Development with the publication of manuals for staff and RT coordinators, implementation guidelines for the Global Reporting Initiative tour operators supplement, and academic publications to reinforce the work of TOI.

Between 2004 and 2007, Xavier coordinated Leeds Met's research for the Travelife EU funded project which has radically changed industry's approach to sustainability as part of supply chain management.
 
Bridging academia and industry, Xavier has prepared several training needs analyses and industry training programmes. He has trained industry in environmental management systems in Brazil, the business case for sustainability in Jordan, sustainable supply chain management in Colombia, responsible destination management in Egypt, responsible tourism marketing in the UK and South Africa. Xavier contributed to EURAid projects in Laos and Nepal on industry training on sustainable management and marketing (2006-2008).

Since 2007, Xavier is engaged in training needs analysis in the South Sinai peninsula in Egypt for EURAid and subsequently in facilitating the training of 200 snorkelling guides, 100 desert bedouin guides and 60 travel agency staff on new responsible product development, funded by The Travel Foundations in the UK and Netherlands. At present Xavier is coordinating the writing of sustainability training for the Federation of Tour Operators to be accredited by City and Guilds and rolled out as CPD for FTO staff.  
 
Xavier coordinates the academic programmes at the ICRT, taking responsibility for PhD students, the development of both the MSc responsible tourism management and MSc responsible tourism marketing. He is in the editorial board for Green Hotelier, The Journal of Voluteer Tourism, and the International Journal of Tourism Policy. His writing priorities have moved on from traditional academic publications to reports that promote industry change.