The nature of rainforest tourism: insights from a tourism social science research program

Abstract

Tourism in and around Australia's Wet Tropics World Heritage Area can be briefly characterized by describing its structure and by providing a succinct description of images and services. The Wet Tropics Area is moderately accessible with a number of highways, minor roads, rivers and tracks providing multiple pathways and points of entry (Tourism Queensland 2005; Tourism Tropical North Queensland 2005). There is a clear seasonality to the region's rainfall (highest from December to March) but visitors are spread throughout the year, with the cooler drier winter months (April to October) being the busiest (Moscardo & Pearce 2000). Visitor activities in the region include self-drive tours, commercial four wheel drive and coach tours, short walks (and, increasingly, longer walks), white water rafting, shopping in small towns and visits to sites featuring wildlife and aboriginal culture. Much visitor activity is focused in the most northerly part of the region, especially the nationally well-known Daintree area where the commercial tours are concentrated (Young 1998).