International Tourism In Tasmania: Number Of Visitors, Major Attractions, And Impacts

Identify the location (destination) of choice for MKT01906.
• Use a range of information sources (online or hard copy) to prepare a two page Fact Sheet
explaining:
• Number of international visitors; visitor origin; key attractions; types of tourism
• What accommodation options are available?
• What is the economic impact of tourism on GDP?
6 | MKT01906 International Tourism Systems (Session 1, 2018)
• What are key tourism activities at the location?
• What other destination features need to be showcased?
Once information has been gathered, prepare the Fact Sheet including relevant graphs and tables (maximum of 2 each) to present the reader with background on international tourism at the destination.
This is to be original work which includes your analysis and presentation of information gathered from several sources. Copied information (such as graphs and tables from other sources) will not be accepted.

Introduction to Tourism in Tasmania

Any travel and stay for not more than one year irrelevance to the purpose is known as the definition of tourism. International tourism system is a crucial aspect for every country as its contribution is effective towards economic development. International tourism leads to bring extra revenue for the country because spending of foreign tourists are treated as extra income for the country while domestic tourism does not leads to enhance the revenues for the country as money circulates within the country only. There are numerous types of tourists such as budget tourists, luxurious tourists, business tourists, etc. Apart from this, tourism is of two types i.e. international and domestic. When tourists travel within the country is a part of domestic tourism and when tourists visit other countries irrelevant to their purposes is known as international tourism.

This report will focus over the international tourism system in relevance with Tasmania. It is an island state of Australia and famous for festivals and sensational food and drinks. This island state is mainly known for national park and world heritage. This state is a small state in Australia but it is an attraction for tourists. The Tasmanian tiger is quite famous and according to survey, 1.28 million people visited Tasmania in one year till September, 2017. Approximately, 8% rise has been noticed in the number of visitors visited last year. Apart from the number of visitors, spending by tourists has also been increased. Tourism Tasmania is the authority with all powers in terms of handling all operations with regards to the tourism in Tasmania (Lovely Planet, 2018).

This report will focus over the number of tourist visitors in Tasmania along with determining the major attractions of small and attractive island state of the country. Further, issues related to the tourism and destination development will be discussed along with discussing the positive and negative impacts of tourism activity. The last part of the report will focus over policy implications by the government to attain sustainable tourism outcomes.

Table 1: Visitors statistics

Table 2: Average number of nights spent by international tourists

Tasmania is one of the smallest island state across the globe along with full of attractions which attracts tourists. Approximately, 1.28 million people visited from other countries to Tasmania which shows the popularity of a small island in Australia. According to research, Tasmania growth rate in September 2017 was higher than the other Australian states and it is also higher than the national average growth rate. Tasmania is famous for all activities which are crucial part of tourism industry. In relevance with attracting tourists from other countries, Tourism Tasmania has adopted some of the trending digital marketing strategies in order to promote tourism in Tasmania (Discover Tasmania, 2018). Tasmania’s major attractions are as follows:

• Museum of old and New art (MONA)
• Salamanca market
• Kunayi/ Mt. Wellington
• Freycinet National Park
• Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park
• Mount Field National Park
• Royal Tasmanian botanical gardens
• Mount Wellington
• Tasmanian music and art gallery is the 2nd oldest museum in Australia
• Museum of Old and New Art
• Lake St Clair

Number of Tourist Visitors in Tasmania

Apart from these places, there is lot more to do and experience along with the great wild life in Tasmania. This attracts tourists from different parts of the globe. This small island state is majorly dependent over tourism activities and most of the income for this state also comes from tourism industry. People in Tasmania follow their culture strictly and they are also found very emotionally attached with their city. From beautiful destinations, attractive and clean drive roads, national parks to self-drive itineraries to world heritage are available in Tasmania and climate and weather conditions also supports Tasmania to attract international tourists for a relished and peaceful experience (Tourism Tasmania, 2018).

Tourists’ perception for visiting a country is motivation for visit and the major motivation for tourists to visit Tasmania are natural beauty, world heritage and beautiful destinations. Along with this, Tourism Tasmania has made the state attractive for all types of tourists. Apart from this, various big hotels, resorts are situated in Tasmania which provides all type of services to the tourists as per their requirements. With the help of these services provided by big hotels and resorts, number of budgeted as well as high spending tourists increases which ultimately enhances the revenues for Tasmania. With the effect of tourism, Tasmania’s growth rate has been analysed higher than the other states of the Australia and higher than from the national average growth rate in 2017. These services and attractions are the major motivation for tourists along with providing various types of services in terms of targeting number of tourists. Tourism is linked with the satisfaction of human desires and in order to satisfy tourist’s desires and needs, Tourism Authority in Tasmania has taken various effective measures and steps so that tourists could feel safe and secure along with numerous experiences. Iso-Ahola’s theory of motivation for tourism industry states that tourists gets motivated towards a destination with the effect of interpersonal escape, personal seeking, interpersonal seeking, and personal escape. Tourist seeks for satisfaction and attaining worth in terms of services and products as per their spending.

In Australia, popularity for Tasmania has been increased from the tourism perceptive and this has helped the small island state to enhance various job opportunities for the unemployed along with enhancing the contribution towards economic development. Tasmania is a tourist place for all types of tourists as the place is full of attractions and as being one of the most visited places across the globe, there are issues and challenges in relevance with tourism and destination development which are faced by Tourism Tasmania:

• Due to high number of visitors, traffic increases and this lead to emission of carbon and other harmful gases. This is affecting local lives along with Tasmanian economy is also getting affected (Wang & Pizam, 2011).
• Tasmania is a small island state, thus, illegal activities such as export of fish have been increased rapidly due to which sea bodies are getting affected. It is also affecting the natural beauty of the place along with increasing threats for tourists.
• Due to high number of visitors, Tourism Tasmania is required to arrange appropriate accommodation facilities and for the same, natural habitat of the state is getting destroying.
• Increased air traffic is another primary reason for decreasing breathing air quality.
• Water wastage and irrelevant utilisation of other natural and scarce resources is also affecting the natural beauty of Tasmania (Kusluvan, et. al., 2010).
• Tasmania has various national parks and amongst those national parks, number of unique animals exists and for the same, number of tourists visits these national parks and to arrange appropriate accommodation and other facilities, hotels and resorts needs to be constructed through which lives of animals is getting affected (Mayaka & Akama, 2007).
• Illegal hunting and dealing of animal skin is another major challenge faced by Tourism Tasmania.

Major Attractions in Tasmania

Tourism industry includes various aspects such as accommodation, travelling services and shopping. Globalisation is another major challenge and issues faced by Tourism Tasmania. All these sectors contribute towards economic development. Along with the benefits, there are various challenges and issues which Tourism Tasmania needs to face in terms of development of the destination so that more target market segment could be enhanced along with approaching to the various parts of the globe:

• Harmful gases emission: International travelling industry is a major contributor for harmful gases and it is crucial segment of tourism industry. Development of international travelling industry is leading to increase traffic in air and thus, it is causing breathing air in negative manner. Due to this, risk for local people along with the tourists increases due to inhaling the harmful and polluted air (Bharwani & Butt, 2012).
• Tourism is a great source of revenue generation and job creation: Tourism industry is a great contributor for a country’s economy. Tasmanian household incomes and wealth were approximately 26-30% which is below the national average till 2014-2015. It was a big challenge and issue for the government authorities to improve the living standard of the Tasmanians. Tourism Tasmania adopted appropriate marketing and promotional strategies so that the attractions of Tasmania could be showcased to the foreign tourists in order to motivate them to visit. This has helped the Tourism Tasmania to improve conditions in Tasmania along with improving the local lives of people. This development has enhanced Tasmanian GSP (Gross State Product) as per the national average along with increasing various job opportunities for the unemployed people with the objective to enhance income diversification. For further development, it is necessary for the Tourism Tasmania to analyse foreign tourists’ demands, wants and desires along with the latest trends followed by other great tourist destinations so that the number of tourist’s visits in a year in Tasmania could be increased (Kang, Lee & Huh, 2010).
• Wastages of natural resources:Due to increased number of visitors in Tasmania, hotels and resorts have been increased along with various attractive services. These services consume high amount of energy resources. This affects the lives of local people as their part of energy is also consumed by hotels and resorts. Apart from this, traffic on roads also increases due to high number of tourist visits and due to this local lives gets affected. Tourism industry is also not able to develop other attractions and facilities for the local as well as for foreign tourists to motivate them with regards to the visit Tasmania (Choi & Murray, 2010). 

Tourism industry has both positive as well as negative impacts and in this scenario, impact of tourism activity will be analysed in over Tasmanian economic conditions as well as over other sectors. On one side tourism industry leads to generate various opportunities for the country and improves wealth conditions whereas it also generates certain negative impacts on the country through which natural life, local individual’s life and lot more gets affected (Deery, Jago & Fredline, 2012). Following are certain crucial positive and negative impacts of the tourism activities:

Tourism industry has improved Tasmanian economic conditions. Till 2014-15, Tasmanian household income was less than the national average household income decided. Apart from this, Tasmanian GSP (Gross State Product) was $18,300 in 2014-15 which is also below than the national average. After application of appropriate marketing strategies by Tourism Tasmania, number of foreign tourists has been increased in recent years. Along with this, Tasmania has gained an effective place amongst the Australian Tourism market. It is a small island state which is full of attractions and various other activities. In relation to this, government authority which controls the activities of tourism sector in Tasmania adopted certain effective measures so that the economic conditions could be improved along with motivating tourists for repeat visitation (Kaplanidou & Vogt, 2007).

• Contribution towards GSP of Tasmania
• Purchasing power of local people increases
• Employment opportunities increases
• With the increased wealth conditions, local public gets motivated to preserve their natural resources along with developing infrastructure to attract tourists (Alegre & Garau, 2010).
• In the last one year, 1.28 million people visited Tasmania which is the record and it is approximately 8% hike has been noticed in comparison to the previous year’s visits.
• In the last one year till September 2017, $2.3 billion spending by tourists were recorded. This helped the state to improve its wealth conditions along with taking appropriate measures to improve amenities for tourists along with improving living standard of local people (Wang & Pfister, 2008).

• Landscape damage
• Private cost increases
• Price of local goods increases because tourist pay more for the same goods and services and it affects local people’s life
• Huge spending towards promotion of attractions of Tasmania to attract foreign tourists (Lee & Chang, 2008).

Mostly tourism activities affects environment in negative manner. Tasmania is a small island state, thus, its major attractions for all age groups are peaceful environment, natural beauty, national parks, and world heritage. Due to small state, there is not much big hotels and resorts for welcoming tourists, hence, to increase number of tourists, accommodation facilities needs to be arranged. This action will directly affect the natural ecosystem of the state.

• Local people gets aware for preserving natural ecosystem of the state
• Tourism Tasmania has adopted certain policies to preserve the state’s natural beauty and with regards to those policies, penalties will be imposed on defaulters (Guttentag, 2009).
• Wildlife is another crucial aspect of Tasmania and in order to restore, tourism authority has adopted appropriate strategies and policies.

• Due to high number of visitors, natural beauty is getting affected
• Due to increased air traffic, air pollution is getting affected
• Natural ecosystem is affecting for constructing luxurious and attractive infrastructure to attract tourists (Wang, 2009).

Tourism industry in Tasmania has helped local people to improve their economic conditions as it has increased job opportunities and revenues for local businesses have also been increased. Local people of Tasmania are aware that their state is majorly dependent over tourism activities, thus, appropriate measures needs to be taken so that negative impacts of the tourism activity could be reduced along with enhancing the positive impacts (Castellani & Sala, 2010).

• Job creation
• Improves standard of living of local people
• People are aware for preserving their surroundings so that natural attractions could be preserved
• Various measures have been taken by local public to improve tourist satisfaction such as providing varieties of services as per the tourist’s budget

• Increasing congestion and traffic which affects local public’s lives
• Emerging economic conditions are attracting MNCs towards Tasmania due to which local businesses are getting affected (Lozano-Oyola, et. al., 2012).
• High number of tourists leads to increase risk for terrorist attacks in order to destroy the natural beauty of the state.

• Tourism Tasmania has adopted appropriate policies to develop effective relations with the tourists. This motivates tourists for repeat visitation.
• To enhance tourist’s satisfaction and their interaction with the local culture and a part of world heritage culture. Along with this, Tourism Tasmania has also developed policies to improve safety and security of the tourists (Hall, 2011).
• In order to spread awareness amongst the target audience, Tourism Tasmania has adopted appropriate marketing and promotional campaigns. These have helped Tasmania to gain large number of tourists (Choi & Turk, 2011).
• In order to boost up the revenues from tourism industry to strengthen the economic conditions of Tasmania, government has introduced several programs under which new start-ups in tourism industry will get rebate in taxes and in other duties for initial years.

Challenges and Issues in Tourism and Destination Development

Conclusion

It can be concluded that tourism is a significant part in terms of enhancing economic conditions of the country. This report has been developed with regards to the impact of international tourism in Tasmania, a small island state in Australia. Australian tourism is one of the largest tourism industries across the globe and it is one of the most visited countries across the globe by tourists. Tasmania is a great location for those visitors who loves nature, wildlife and world heritage. This report concludes various aspects of the tourism industry in Tasmania. Major attractions of Tasmania, issues and challenges faced by tourism authority in Tasmania and positive and negative impact of tourism activities are key highlights of this report.

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