Do travellers collect world heritage areas?

Abstract

Certain travel destinations and places hold a particular appeal to special interest tourists resulting in the visitor consciously collecting those sites. Travel magazines, TV programs, authors and others take full advantage of the penchant for some people to collect destinations and places; yet, there is a decided absence of tourism-related literature on such behaviour. This paper reports on a study conducted in three Australian World Heritage Areas over a four month period in 2008 to determine if some travelers to these sites do collect them. Nine hundred and six self-completing questionnaires were collected on-site from visitors to Fraser Island, Riversleigh Site-D and the Queensland side of the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia. Evidence suggests that park communications to visitors about World Heritage could be improved. Data gathered found between 7% -15.6% of visitors do collect World Heritage Areas; but their socio-demographic characteristics are too complex to be determined with this study's methodology. There is a significant opportunity for future tourism researchers to expand upon this area of special interest tourism.