Tourism experts

Associate Professor Sue Moore

Protected area management especially visitor management and governance; nature based tourism; perceptions of biodiversity and associated policies

An international expert in protected area management and tourism, Associate Professor Moore is involved in a national project investigating how partnerships between the tourism industry and protected area managers contribute to the sustainability of these areas.

She is also investigating the community’s understanding of how forest thinning is used to increase the water available for urban usage.

As leader of the Nature Tourism Research Group at Murdoch University, Professor Moore has studied many national parks in Australia and overseas and continues to work with park agencies and the tourism industry to improve the sustainability of these important areas.

She has published over 100 articles and books, including the best selling Natural Area Tourism: Ecology, Impacts and Management, and Wildlife Tourism.

Dr Jim Macbeth

Ethics, sustainability and the Utopian tourist

A sociology expert, Dr Jim Macbeth specialises in subcultures, alternative lifestyles and tourism as a social phenomenon.

His research, much of which is funded through the Desert Knowledge and Sustainable Tourism Cooperative Research Centres and the Australia Research Council, currently focuses on 4WD desert tourism development on Rottnest Island.

Dr Macbeth has written articles for Australian and international journals and has entries in the Historical Encyclopedia of Western Australia, in addition to an historical chapter on tourism in a book resulting from the Voices project on the West End of Fremantle.

Dr Diane Lee

Sustainable development of tourism

Dr Diane Lee is a specialist in the sustainable development of tourism in Australia and developing nations.

Dr Lee uses her research into local regional tourism to model best practice in areas including wildlife tourism, and partnerships between the tourist industry and protected area managers.

She has also helped develop societal marketing approaches for Great Barrier Reef tourism operators, and provided a background information report for the Federal Government policy on foreign investment in tourism in Australia.

Her current research involves an investigation of ‘trails’ as a tourism resource for regional development in Western Australia.

Dave Cooper

Tourism history, travel narratives and the use of visual imagery in travel

Dave Cooper is an expert in visual imagery and travel, and the sustainable development of tourism destinations.

Mr Cooper has been teaching on the travel industry, destination management, anthropology, politics and the sociology of travel on Murdoch’s Travel and Tourism Program since its inception.