Peet van der Merwe was born in Kuruman, South Africa in 1973 and is currently living in Potchefstroom South Africa. He is a senior lecturer and researcher in tourism management at North-West University: Potchefstroom Campus, School for Business Management.  As researcher he also forms part of the NRF research unit TREES (Tourism Research in Economic, Environs and Society). Peet obtained his degree in 1994, honours degree in 1995 and master’s degree in 1999.  He completed his PhD (2004) in tourism management and in 2010 he was promoted to associate professor and in 2014 to full professor.

His field of expertise lies in wildlife tourism, hunting tourism and ecotourism (sustainable tourism).  Research output are as follows: Peer reviewed articles (40), Popular articles (27), Projects (27), Research reports (34), Books (2), Chapters (2), Completed masters and PhD students completed (17), International conferences (34), National conferences (14) and International quest lectures (3). Peet married to Madelein and they have two sons, Armand and Richter.