Dr McKercher is a Professor in Tourism in the School of Hotel and Tourism Management at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He has been a tourism academic since 1990, working in both Australia and Hong Kong. Prior to that, Prof McKercher worked in the Canadian tourism industry in a variety of advocacy and operational roles. He was also a ski instructor and back country guide.

Dr McKercher has wide ranging research interests. He has published over 200 scholarly papers and research reports on a variety of cultural tourism, socio-cultural tourism, nature-based tourism, regional tourism development, tourism marketing and tourism education issues. He is the author of The Business of Nature-based Tourism (1998) and co-authored Cultural Tourism: The partnership between tourism and cultural heritage management (2002). He has also co-edited two other books. Dr McKercher is the member of the editorial board of 11 international tourism journals.

He received his PhD from the University of Melbourne in Australia, a Masters degree from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada and his undergraduate degree from York University in Toronto, Canada.