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Abstract
Sustainable destinations must deliver products that perform better than their competitors and at the same time protect key environmental drawcards. This research explores the environmental–economic interface of a major destination, both as a case study in how to approach this complex relationship and as a contribution to the methodology of tackling the need for understanding competitive pressures as part of sustainable tourism strategy creation. Using the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area (GBRWHA) as an example, the paper assesses 21 key environmental values, including Indigenous culture, against market-based factors, in terms of their importance for visitors as regional drawcards, satisfaction with them and the way in which changes in them might affect trip numbers and duration across different regions. While the natural values of the GBRWHA are found to be the most important drawcards, satisfaction scores were significantly lower than importance scores for a number of these values. Visitors responded more negatively to the prospect of environmental degradation than to the prospect of a 20% increase in local prices: the detailed impact depends, however, on location and visitor mix. Clear ocean, healthy coral reefs, healthy reef fish, and lack of rubbish were the top four most important values.
环境价值对目的地竞争力和可持续性旅游战略制定的重要性：澳大利亚的大堡礁世界遗产保护区的案例
可持续目的地必须传递能比他们的竞争者更好地表现的产品，并且同时能保护主要的环境吸引力。本研究探讨了一个主要目的地环境-经济的接口，这包括如何处理这种复杂关系的案例研究，并为解决解决理解可持续旅游战略创新的一部分-竞争压力作出了方法贡献。以大堡礁世界遗产保护区（GBRWHA）为例，依据游客区域性欢迎度，满意度，以及其中改变它们可能会影响在不同的地区旅行人数和持续时间的方式，本文评估了21个重点环境价值，包括土著文化，反对基于市场的因素，其重要性条款。而GBRWHA的自然价值被发现是最重要的因素，在这些价值中满意度得分均低于重要性得分。然而相比起当地价格提高20％，游客对环境恶化的前景反应比较消极，具体影响取决于位置和游客的组合。清澈的海洋，健康的珊瑚礁，健康的珊瑚鱼和缺乏垃圾是前四个最重要的价值。
Acknowledgements
We wish to thank Hana Sakata, Diane Jarvis, Adriana Chacon, and Cheryl Fernandez for their help with data collection and data entry, all tourism operators (including airport managers), and in particular GBR tourists who shared their opinions and thoughts with us. Without their contribution, this study would not have been possible.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Supplemental data
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here (http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2014.998678).
Notes
1. Although the GBRWHA remains a key natural attraction for many visitors, it has not been immune to the characteristically volatile nature of the tourism industry, and is experiencing stagnation. Since the last economic contribution study conducted for the Reef in 2007, total visitor days/nights grew by only 4% to 42.8 million over the five years to June 2012. International visitor nights, in particular, fell by 10% over the period, with more overseas tourists visiting the capital cities. However, developments in the domestic market compensated for this weakness, with a 9% growth rate over the five-year period, making domestic overnight visitors the key source of tourism revenue (Deloitte Access Economics, Citation2013). Various factors have been attributed to this downturn in visitation and, inevitably, contributing to the decline in expenditures in the Reef catchment: a high exchange rate, the impact of the global financial crisis on incomes domestically and abroad, and the impact of natural disasters in Queensland (floods and cyclones).
2. Managing a destination's competitiveness is by no means simple, given the fact that tourism destination, by nature, differs from most competitive products: (1) unlike simple products, managed by a single firm, the tourism product is an experience, delivered by a variety of players (tourism enterprises, supporting industries and organisations, destination management organisations, the public sector, local residents, etc.); (2) the product itself is made up of a number of attributes; (3) each tourist experience is unique; and (4) unclear and incompatible goals, where some goals aim for economic returns and others for environmental and social outcomes (Crouch, Citation2007).
3. Bequest value is the ‘value’ that the current generation places on the availability of such values to future generations (Hernández et al., Citation2014; Lazo, McClelland, & SchulzeSource, Citation1997) (e.g. preserving the GBRWHA either for its own sake or for future generations).
4. The GBRWHA is home to the largest collection of coral reefs in the world, 1500 species of fish, 1500 varieties of sponges and over 4000 types of mollusc. It is a significant entity for biodiversity conservation supporting extensive seagrass beds and a variety of algae, critical for dugongs and turtles – both of which have been internationally recognised as vulnerable. It is also a breeding area for humpback whales migrating from the Antarctic to give birth in the warm waters (Department Of Environment, Citation2014).
5. Variables such as length of stay, number of previous visits, return to the region, and contribution to conservation were found to be endogenous, and thus were not included in the model. It was difficult to control so many things at the same time (e.g. endogeneity, the proportional odds assumption, multicollinearity, correlation between the residuals), and thus it was decided not to include endogenous variables in the models.
6. Kruskal–Wallis test was performed first: clean ocean (H(2) = 38.75, p < .05), no rubbish (H(2) = 19.26, p < .05), reef fish (H(2) = 15.37, p < .05), coral reefs (H(2) = 24.34, p < .05) and oil spills, groundings and waste (H(2) = 35.83, p < .05), tourists (H(2) = 6.50, p < .05), and fishing (H(2) = 11.07, p < .05). Mann–Whitney tests were then used, with a Bonferroni correction (implying a new critical value of .0167) to make pair-wise comparisons.
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Notes on contributors
Michelle Esparon
Michelle Esparon is a researcher at James Cook University, contributing to projects exploring trade-offs between economic development and environmental protection. She is currently researching the relative importance of non-market values of the Great Barrier Reef and Wet Tropics World Heritage Areas.
Natalie Stoeckl
Natalie Stoeckl is a “Tropical Leader”, and professor of economics at James Cook University. With a BEc and PhD from the Australian National University, and an MEc from JCU, she led the economics program at JCU, was a researcher at the CSIRO and a lecturer at the University of Canberra. She has a keen interest in environmental and distributional issues associated with economic growth, extensive experience with non-market valuation techniques and develops collaborative cross-disciplinary research using models combining economic, environmental and social variables to explore interactions between socio-economic and ecological systems.
Marina Farr
Marina Farr is a researcher at James Cook University, works on natural resource economics and management, environmental economics, non-market valuation techniques, tourism economics and recreational fisheries.
Silva Larson
Silva Larson is a research fellow at James Cook University and the Cairns Institute, works on the assessment of the impacts of change, including climate change potential mitigation and adaptation options for improvement of community wellbeing and quality of life.