Jarkko Saarinen is a Professor of human geography at the University of Oulu, Finland, and Distinguished Visitor Professor at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. His research interests include tourism and development, sustainability and responsibility in tourism, tourism-community relations, tourism and climate change, community-based natural resource management and wilderness studies. Geographically his research focuses on northern and Arctic regions and southern Africa. He is Editor for the Tourism Geographies and Associate Editor for the Annals of Tourism Research and Journal of Ecotourism. His recent publications include co-authored and co-edited books: Climate Change and Tourism in Southern Africa (2022), Resilient Destinations (2019), Borderless Worlds for Whom? (2019), Political Ecology and Tourism (2016) and Cultural Tourism in Southern Africa (2016).

Professor Berendien Lubbe is a Research Associate in the Department of Historical and Heritage Studies at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. Her research includes tourism management focusing on destination and regional competitiveness, the impact of mega-trends on tourism destinations, the role of air transport in tourism development and business travel. She has published in numerous journals and her books on Tourism Management in South Africa and Tourism Distribution have been widely prescribed. She has contributed to a number of local and international books with her latest chapters being on the Development of African Air Transport and the Use of ICTS in the Airline Industry. She holds a doctorate in Communication Management which was done on the tourism potential between Saudi Arabia and South Africa.

Dr. Naomi Moswete is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Environmental Science, University of Botswana. Her research interests include tourism as a strategy for rural development, community-based tourism; transboundary conservation areas, ecotourism, protected areas-people relationships, natural resources management, cultural - heritage resource management, poverty and gender - based empowerment via tourism. She is a member of the editorial board and associate editor of the Journal of Parks and Recreation Administration. She has published journal articles and book chapters at both local and international levels. Her latest publications were titled: Perceived wildlife based tourism and impacts at the Chobe National Park, Botswana (2018), and an edited book: Cultural Tourism in Southern Africa (2016).