Laurie Murphy has been an academic staff member in the School of Business at JCU since 1991 (part-time from 1998-2005). Her current research interests include destination branding and marketing particularly at a regional level, and tourist shopping villages. She has also published research on the backpacker travel market which influenced the development of a National Backpacker Tourism Strategy by the Australian Federal Government in 1995. Laurie is on the editorial board of the Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing and the Journal of Travel Research and has published 9 articles in international journals and 2 edited book chapters.

Pierre Benckendorff is a Lecturer in Tourism Management in the School of Business, James Cook University, Australia. His current research interests include visitor attraction management, urban and built tourism settings, entertainment, tourism technologies and tourism education and he has authored and co-authored a number of academic articles in these areas. He is a member of several international tourism organisations including the Council for Australian University Tourism and Hospitality Educators, the Asia Pacific Tourism Association and the PATA Young Professionals.

Gianna Moscardo has been a member of the academic staff of the School of Business since February 2002. Before joining the School of Business she had been a Principal Research Fellow and project leader in tourism research in the Cooperative Research Centres for Reef and Rainforest for eight years managing a series of research and extension activities aimed at enhancing the sustainability of tourism activities in Northern Australia. She was recently elected to the World Tourism Organization's International Academy for the Study of Tourism Scholars. To date she has authored or co-authored 114 refereed international research publications including 3 research books, 45 articles in international academic journals, 25 chapters in edited research books and 33 refereed papers published in international conference proceedings including 2 best paper awards.

Philip L. Pearce is the foundation Professor of Tourism at James Cook University. His interests in tourism were developed during his doctoral studies at Oxford University where he analysed the behaviour of tourists on European package tours. He has developed a continuing interest in tourist behaviour and has written 6 books concerned with aspects of tourism including the recent volume with Channel View, Tourist Behaviour: Themes and Conceptual Schemes. He is a founding member of the International Academy for the Study of Tourism and Honorary Professor at Xi'an International Studies University, Xi'an, China.