Annual and quarterly patterns of rainforest tourism in the Wet
Tropics World Heritage Area, North Queensland
Research Report
Karen McNamara and Bruce Prideaux
School of Business, James Cook University
ISBN 9781921359330
Published September 2009
MTSRF Project 4.9.2 -
Sustainable nature based tourism: planning and management
Introduction
In response to a need to more clearly identify the
characteristics, motivations and travel patterns of visitors who
visited the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area (WTWHA), this annual
report presents a range of rainforest visitor data that can be used
by the Wet Tropics Management Authority for planning and marketing
purposes and by tourism industry operators.
This report is a culmination of the research conducted in 2008
on rainforest tourism in the WTWHA. This research was funded
through by Australian Government's Marine and Tropical Sciences
Research Facility (MTSRF). The key tasks allocated to MTSRF Project
4.9.2 Sustainable nature based tourism: Planning and
management in relation to the Wet Tropics are:
This project is designed to identify aspects of the annual
tourist usage of the Wet Tropics rainforests, including key trends,
visitation patterns, activities and behaviours, and
motivations.
Throughout this annual report, data is outlined on a quarterly
and annual basis. Moreover, an annual comparison is provided with
the 2007 data1. The quarters of data collection were January to
March; April to June; July to September and October to December. A
total of 1,010 surveys were completed by visitors across the whole
WTWHA during 2008.
The results in this annual report are discussed in three
sections:
-
The socio-demographic characteristics of respondents;
-
The motivations and behaviours of respondents; and
-
The experiences and satisfaction of respondents.
The individual quarterly data that has already been released can
be accessed at the MTSRF website.
This annual report analyses data from January to December
2008.
