The role of Great Barrier Reef tourism operators in addressing climate change through strategic communication and direct action

ABSTRACT

The projected decline in reef health worldwide will have huge repercussions on millions of stakeholders depending upon coral reefs. Urgent action is needed to sustain coral reefs into the future. Tourism operators are recognised as stewards of Australia's Great Barrier Reef (GBR), a World Heritage Site, and are taking action on climate change, through their business practices and by engaging guests with interpretation and targeted messages. Yet little is known about how tourism operators along the GBR perceive climate change, or what actions they believe are most effective to address climate change impacts on the GBR. We describe a set of semi-structured interviews with 19 tourism operators in the Whitsundays and Cairns, the most popular tourism destinations along the GBR. Using a thematic analysis to code and report patterns within the data, we show tourism operators recognise the threat of climate change and strongly support increased action to address it. Most respondents are hesitant to engage their guests about climate change despite acknowledging an interest, expertise, and responsibility to do so. Understanding the barriers preventing tourism operators from addressing climate change is an important step towards helping them, and the tourists visiting the region, take action to protect the GBR.

KEYWORDS:

• Behaviour change
• climate change
• coral reef management
• human dimension
• interpretation
• natural resource management
• socio-ecological system

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Additional information

Funding

Funding for the SELTMP surveys is gratefully acknowledged from the National Environmental Research Program, CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere Flagship, James Cook University, and the Great Barrier Reef Foundation. Funding for the follow-up surveys was kindly provided by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority via a Science for Management Award and James Cook University via an Australian Postgraduate Research Scholarship.

Notes on contributors

Jeremy Goldberg

Jeremy Goldberg is a PhD student at James Cook University. His research interests include environmental behaviours, conservation, and resource management.

Alastair Birtles

Alastair Birtles, PhD, is a senior lecturer in Environmental Management and Ecotourism at James Cook University and the former Deputy Chair of the Australian World Heritage Advisory Committee. He has 20 years research experience on ecotourism, environmental management, integrated coastal zone management, and ecologically sustainable tourism.

Nadine Marshall

Nadine Marshall, PhD, is a senior social scientist at CSIRO. Her research interests centre on understanding how social and ecological systems are resilient to change and how strategies might be developed for sustainability.

Matt Curnock

Matt Curnock, PhD, is a research officer in the CSIRO Land and Water Flagship. His research interests focus broadly on sustainability science, natural resource management, and conservation.

Peter Case

Peter Case, PhD, is a professor of Management at the Bristol Business School, UK, and professor of Management and Organization Studies at James Cook University. His research encompasses leadership studies, organization theory and philosophy, organizational development, and international development.

Roger Beeden

Roger Beeden, PhD, is the director of the Tourism and Stewardship Department at the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. He has spent the past decade studying and managing for coral reef resilience.