Pierre Benckendorff

Professor Pierre Benckendorff is an award-winning researcher specialising in visitor behaviour, technology enhanced learning and tourism. He has held several teaching and learning leadership positions at The University of Queensland and James Cook University in Australia. His experience includes coordinating a team of teaching and learning staff, program quality assurance and accreditation, and curriculum reviews of undergraduate and postgraduate coursework programs in business, tourism, hospitality and event management. He has developed and taught undergraduate and postgraduate courses in introductory tourism management, international tourism, tourist behaviour, tourism and leisure futures, tourism transportation, tourism operations, tourism technologies, tourism analysis, business skills and marketing communications. Pierre has been actively involved in a number of national teaching and learning projects totalling close to AUD 1 million in grant funding. In 2007, he received a national Carrick citation for outstanding contributions to student learning. Pierre was part of the national team that developed the Learning and Teaching Academic Standards for Tourism, Hospitality and Events and has continued to co-lead efforts to embed and measure these standards under the auspices of CAUTHE. He is currently the co-chair of knowledge creation for the BEST Education Network and in this capacity, has worked with the World Travel and Tourism Council to edit a book of international cases based on Tourism for Tomorrow award finalists and winners. He is the co-editor of the Handbook of Teaching and Learning in Tourism. Pierre serves regularly as an external reviewer of tourism programs in Australia and overseas institutions. His research interests include visitor behaviour, tourism information technologies, and tourism education and training. He has authored over 80 publications in these areas in leading international journals and is a regular speaker at tourism research conferences. He is on the editorial board of several leading tourism journals and is a regular reviewer of papers. He has also co-authored one of the leading textbooks on tourism and information technology. He has served as a judge for the Queensland Tourism Awards as well as the Australian Tourism Awards. His passion for travel and tourism has taken him to some of the world’s leading theme parks and airports, the major cities of Europe and North America, the African Savannah and the bustling streets of Asia. He has also travelled extensively throughout Australia and New Zealand. Technology and Visitor Experiences: Aplications of smart technologies, social media and artificial intelligence in marketing, interpretation, wayfinding, service and experience design. Tourism Education and Scholarship: Curriculum, pedagogy and learning outcomes in tourism education. Collaboration in tourism scholarhship and the epistemology of tourism as a post disciplinary field of research Generation Y and Generation Z: Behaviour, perceptions and preferences of Generation Y and Z travellers

[2026] Journal Article: ‘Simulate’ to ‘stimulate’: generative AI for causal and anticipatory service research. Liu, Gus Guanrong and Benckendorff, Pierre (2026). ‘Simulate’ to ‘stimulate’: generative AI for causal and anticipatory service research. The Service Industries Journal, 1-26. doi: 10.1080/02642069.2026.2684022 [2026] Journal Article: Conceptualizing hospitableness in human–robot hospitality interactions. Liu, Gus Guanrong, Benckendorff, Pierre and Walters, Gabby (2026). Conceptualizing hospitableness in human–robot hospitality interactions. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 135 104640, 1-11. doi: 10.1016/j.ijhm.2026.104640 [2025] Other Outputs: Brisbane Valley Rail Trail: workforce plan. Solnet, David, Benckendorff, Pierre, Jooss, Stefan, Golubovskaya, Maria and Wa