Year 3 (2008/2009) and Year 2 (2007/2008) Project Leader: 
Professor Bruce Prideaux, James Cook University (JCU)

Research Organisation: JCU, CSIRO

This project includes determination of the social values of key marine species, particularly large fish around tourism facilities, and identification of key trends and drivers of visitor patterns to the Great Barrier Reef (GBR), and an economic analysis of the value of no-take zones to tourism in the GBR.

The economic analysis will be deferred until adequate capability has been developed in North Queensland through a James Cook University and CSIRO cooperative arrangement. In addition, the program will identify annual visitor usage patterns of the GBR to enable the identification of key trends and drivers of visitor patterns. Impacts of tourism and visitation to critical reef sites and sustainable levels of visitation to these sites will be assessed. This Project will provide links with the inshore biodiversity project (Project 4.8.7) on Irukandii movement and habits, and the risk of human encounters to Irukandji and other marine stingers that may influence tourist visitation.

The project is linked to Project 4.8.5, Objectives (a) and (b): To understand and document the influence of the 2003 GBR Zoning Plan on use (tourism, recreation, and fishing) of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area and users and Project 4.9.2 Sustainable Nature Based Tourism: Planning and Management. There is potential for the project to be linked to other projects within the MTSRF program.

Key objectives of Project 4.8.6 include:

• Identification of relative social and economic values of key marine species, particularly large fish around tourist facilities;

• Completion of a bio-economic analysis of the 2003 GBR Zoning Plan to determine the value of no-take zones to tourism in the GBR. This component will be deferred until adequate capability has been developed in North Queensland through a JCU/CSIRO cooperative arrangement;

• Identification of impacts of tourist and visitation to key reef sites and sustainable levels of visitation to these sites; and

• Identification of key trends and drivers of visitor patterns, including a comparison of the GBR with international reef tourist attractions.

Coghlan, A. and Prideaux, B. (2009) Responding to stakeholder research needs using a visitor monitoring survey:  The case of the Great Barrier Reef tourism industry.  Tourism in Marine Environments 5(2-3): 175-185.

Coghlan, A. and Prideaux, B. (2009) Welcome to the Wet Tropics:  The importance of weather on reef tourism resilience.  Current Issues in Tourism 12(2): 89-104 [doi:10/1080.13683500802596367]