TOURISM

Tourism is one of Australia's fastest-growing industries.² It accounted for 10.5 per cent of Australia's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 1995-96 (the latest year for which this calculation has been made to date), ³ compared with 5.5 per cent of GDP in 1991-92 when it employed 6.1 per cent of the workforce. By the year 2000 tourism could be employing 8 per cent of Australia's workforce.⁴ Tourism is also Australia's largest export industry. Total export earnings from tourism in 1995-96 were $13.1 billion, approximately 12 per cent of total export earnings.⁵ Nationally (1996 figures) 40 per cent of tourist revenue came from overseas visitors.⁶

For Victoria the contribution of overseas tourists in 1995-96 to the Gross State Product was $9.4 billion.⁷

Though overseas visitors are the largest per capita spenders, Australians are by far the bulk of the market.⁸ Tourists from intra- and inter-state accounted for 75 per cent of tourism visits in Victoria, with this domestic tourism accounting for (in 1998) $6 billion of direct tourism expenditure.⁹ The domestic market should, in the opinion of Tourism Victoria, be the first target of the Victorian tourist industry.¹⁰

Trips to Victoria have been growing at an average yearly rate of 11 per cent since 1993 and reached 15.4 million in 1997.¹¹ Of the trips in 1997, 3.2 million were made by interstate visitors and almost one million by overseas tourists (overseas visits continued to rise in 1998 to 1,015,070).¹² Expenditure by overseas visitors to Victoria was $1.52 billion.

All relevant tourism strategies support the principle of ecologically sustainable development.¹³ Moreover, the tourism industry generally has a vested interest in Australia's natural resources and a role to play in their maintenance. It is increasingly aware of these responsibilities;¹⁴ Preece et al (consultants to the Biodiversity Group of the federal Department of Environment, Sport and Territories) consider that:

A large ... proportion of [all] tourism in Australia is based on aspects of the natural environment, focusing particularly on biological diversity - the plants, animals, ecosystems and natural landscapes of Australia. Indeed, Australia's [natural] environment has been identified as ... the key drawcard for international visitors.¹⁵

Tourism in which a relatively undisturbed natural environment can be enjoyed, is proving to be the most rapidly growing segment of Australia's tourist industry.¹⁶ Some 50 per cent of overseas tourists visited a national or State park or reserve.¹⁷ In 1996-97 Victoria's national parks and other reserves attracted 25 million visits, compared with 8 million visits only ten years earlier. The Bureau of Tourism Research considers that Australia's natural features play an important role in attracting visitors to Australia.¹⁸ Recent studies have shown that 80 to 85 per cent of Japanese visitors and 70 per cent of European and American visitors to Australia identify nature-based factors, including wildlife, as key elements in their travel decisions.¹⁹

There are still large opportunities for growth in this type of tourism for both overseas and domestic markets. It has been reported that many Asian tourists have expressed disappointment after visits to Australia, because they have not, in fact, experienced natural areas or wildlife in these settings.²⁰ This is because of the shortness of their visits and the long distances between features in some States. For Victoria, with its relatively short distances between destinations and diversity of natural areas, this could pose less of a problem than for other States.²¹

Natural areas are thus of substantial significance to tourism.²² A proportion of such tourism activity can be attributed directly to the viewing of native wildlife.

The Value of Native Wildlife for Tourism

Given the Terms of Reference of the Inquiry, the Committee is particularly interested in tourism that is specifically focussed on native species. While it is often difficult to separate the attractions of native flora and fauna from the more general attraction of natural scenery, many of those making submissions considered native wildlife as a distinct and important contributor to tourism, and considered that wildlife tourism had considerable potential in Victoria.²³ The Victorian Tourism Operators Association confirmed that Victoria's native plants and animals are an essential component of tourism outside urban areas.²⁴

The Committee was told that the penguins at Phillip Island are one of the main reasons for overseas tourists to visit Victoria, albeit an attraction largely dependent on a major investment in tourist infrastructure.²⁵ The Penguin Parade Reserve attracts 500,000 paying visitors per year. This is an increase of more than 100 per cent since 1993, making it Victoria's third most popular fee-for-entry attraction.²⁶ Of these visitors, 60 per cent come from overseas, with approximately half of these from Asia.²⁷ It has been estimated that the gross annual economic benefit to Victoria was $96.5 million and 1,060 jobs in 1995-96.²⁸

The Melbourne Zoo attracted a total of 945,151 visitors in the year 1997-98 and more overseas visitors than any other paid-entry destination in Victoria.²⁹ The Healesville Sanctuary attracted 327,300 visitors in the same year, with a high proportion of these being overseas tourists drawn by the focus on native animals and habitats at the Sanctuary.³⁰ The Ballarat Wildlife Park, a private venture, is also one of the State's biggest tourist attractions.

Research undertaken elsewhere in Australia has shown that such wildlife attractions are of particular interest to overseas visitors.³¹ For instance, wildflower viewing has been identified as the focus of three per cent of all overseas visitors to Australia, particularly those from the United Kingdom and Europe.³²

Australia is special in terms of its unusual and relic animal species and diversity of plants. While Australians may take kangaroos for granted, for non-Australians they are unique - being the only large animal that hops. Australia has other more subtle attractions - its arid zones (represented in Victoria by the Mallee) have, for instance, the world's richest ant and lizard faunas.³³

The presence of wildlife-based attractions may also influence tourists' decisions to visit Victoria. As well as the penguins at Phillip Island, the seals of Port Philip Bay and Western Port are of increasing interest, with dolphin-watching in Port Phillip Bay and whale-watching at Warrnambool major wildlife attractions of international appeal.

The Victorian Tourism Operators Association has confirmed that the reasonably close proximity of several attractions to each other is a good selling point for tourism in Victoria.³⁴ The close proximity of the Penguin Parade, Seal Rocks Sea Life Centre and other wildlife attractions to each other on Phillip Island enhances the attractiveness of the district to tourists.

The presence of native species is also part of the attraction of national parks and reserves for tourists, as is illustrated in Table 5.1

Table 5.1 Visits to Victorian tourist destinations that feature native plants and animals, 1995

		Visitors per year
Location	Main attractions	Total	Overseas
Grampians National Park	Wildflowers, scenery	1,444,200	n/a*
Phillip Island Penguin Reserve	Penguins	496,690	266,400
Wilson's Promontory National Park	Native plants and animals, scenery, beaches	378,784	n/a
Wilson's Promontory Marine Park and Reserve	Native plants and animals, scenery, beaches and marine life	80,000	n/a
Gellibrand Hill Park	Cultural heritage, scenery, native animals, proximity to Melbourne	112,994	n/a
Healesville Sanctuary	Native animals	n/a	76,900

Source: Tourism Victoria (July 1996), `Visitors to Victoria's Parks and Attractions 1995', unpublished. *n/a means `data not available'.

It is also known that nature-based tourists spend more on trips to Australia than do other tourists.³⁵ One study estimated that nature-based tourism in the Grampians region brings $100 million to Victoria annually, with an overseas visitor bringing $6 for every $1 spent by a local.³⁶

At least for the mass market, icons are important.³⁷ At a national level, kangaroos and koalas are examples. In Victoria, the little penguin is an additional example. Such icons are strongly linked with our national image and are at least partially responsible for tourism income of hundreds of millions of dollars. To a lesser extent, the knowledge of unique plant species such as banksias, waratahs and kangaroo paw and forests of the tallest hardwood tree (mountain ash) in the world may also contribute to the appeal. Thus, even where direct use of native plants and animals is not involved, tourism in Victoria can benefit from images of native species.

Preece et al. believe that convincing evidence can be produced to establish the economic benefits of natural areas to tourism. They recommend that:

Such information ... [be] widely disseminated to representatives of the tourism industry and to government policy makers to demonstrate the need for ongoing and improved environmental management of these special areas.³⁸

One submission received by the Committee estimated that a commercial `conservation industry' - if not hampered by public-sector monopolies, could create:

A combined value of ... $10 billion with an annual turnover of over $5 billion per annum. It would employ 60,000 people. It would earn Australia $100 billion per annum in wildlife tourism. It would be worth as much to Victoria as its whole primary production combined.³⁹