TRENDS IN PROTECTED AREAS - Sustainable Tourism CRC

vi
TRENDS IN PROTECTED AREAS
problematical because there is no consistent system for collecting or analysing data or for gathering information
on the revenue generation of visitation.
The emerging trend of climate change internationally has threatened mountain tourism in recent years. The
use of resorts in mountainous national parks for adventure tourism and skiing is changing due to shorter and
unpredictable winter snow falls and longer summers. Nevertheless, national parks and other protected areas
present a best option for retaining natural ecosystem resilience, reducing threats, and protecting refuges and other
critical habitats for wildlife to adapt to climate change.
Future Action
This report concludes that there are no systematic and consistent methods and processes to measure the visitation
trends in protected areas internationally and in Australia. A number of recommendations are therefore proposed.
• A worldwide database to measure visitation trends in protected areas should be developed to inform policy
makers and protected area management agencies globally because a lot of these ‘trends’ are not currently
being monitored at a global level by the World Conservation Monitoring Centre (WCMC) or World
Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA).
• A review of the current practice of information collection, analysis, publication and dissemination
mechanisms of protected areas and tourism management agencies across Australia is essential for
development of megatrends in visitor use of national parks and protected areas in Australia. It is imperative
to develop a comprehensive, nationally consistent system for measuring the condition and trends with
particular reference to how many visitors there are, which areas do they visit, and what activities are they
engaged with in both terrestrial and marine parks.
• The close relationship between tourism marketing and immigration in Australia is not a particularly wellresearched
area in the tourism industry. Information on the emergence of new tourism markets and
increasingly diversified products to cater for emerging markets should be developed.
• Both domestic and international visitors are concentrated in iconic protected areas in Australia. Additional
research is needed to determine their carrying capacity and the required financial and human resources to
cope with the increasing demands on parks services and recreational activities.
• Understanding visitor demand for parks and protected areas should be the focus of future systematic and
strategic studies in collaboration with protected area management agencies, the tourism industry and
STCRC to transfer research outputs into outcomes of economic, environmental and social benefit to
Australia.
• There is a need to identify best practices of sustainably managed tourism destinations in Australia and
worldwide to learn from the best practices in protected area tourism.