Australian tourism in a water constrained economy: research agenda

"February 2010".

Project Number: Australian Tourism in a Water Constrained Economy: Scoping Study - M/BUS/303.

MDFRC item.

51 pages ISBNs: 9781921658303 (pbk) 9781921658303 (pdf).

In January 2009 Sustainable Tourism Cooperative Research Centre (STCRC) commissioned the development of a research agenda to deal with the needs of the tourism industry in the policy context of a water constrained setting. A research team from partner universities undertook a literature review of the existing work and reached a view that the paucity of research in this field had made it difficult for the tourism industry to be fully engaged in the policy debate. In order to verify the research agenda an industry reference group was formed to provide input at critical points during its development. Several iterations between the research team and the reference group led to an agenda that comprises four main themes: access to inland water for tourism and recreation—where complementarities, conflicts and trade-offs exist for ecosystem health and human well-being; the ‘value’ of tourism and recreation—challenges in articulating a cohesive message; political and institutional dimensions to tourism water research; human behaviour, water and tourism. It was also resolved that case analyses were an essential component that would provide salient examples and deal with the considerable hydrological variability that typifies this continent.