Hildebrandt, A. 2003. Understanding Tourist Use of the Great Barrier Reef: The Whitsundays Visitor. Data Summary Report for CRC Reef Project B2.1.1.

This report was prepared in response to a request for more specific information about visitors who travel to the Great Barrier Reef and its adjacent islands from the Whitsundays (n=557).

Key Findings

The survey was completed by 557 Whitsundays visitors. These respondents:

• were mainly first time visitors to the GBR (60%),
• had an average age of 37,
• were predominantly international visitors (51%) from the UK/Ireland,
• were most likely to be with a spouse or partner (32%) or in a family group (29%),
• were mostly planning to spend 1-7 days in the region (65%), and
• were most likely to have snorkelled (77%), been swimming (61%), or gone on a semi-submersible tour (52%).

The three main sources of GBR information used by Whitsundays visitors were:

• friends/family members· brochures/pamphlets picked up within the region
• books/library

The most important factors for Whitsundays visitors when choosing this reef tour were

• it offered opportunities to snorkel
• it advertised opportunities to see marine wildlife

With regard to their overall reef experience, 15% of the visitors thought that there were too many other people, 20% felt there were too few wildlife encounters, and 28% thought there was not enough information about the reef.

Overall, visitors were very satisfied with their GBR visit. Eighty-seven percent of visitors gave an overall score of between 8 and 10 (on a rating scale where 0=not at all satisfied and 10=very satisfied) with a mean score of 8.79. Seventy-seven percent of visitors said that they would definitely recommend a trip to the GBR to others, while 44% said that they would definitely like to visit the reef again.

Download a copy of the entire document here. (Adobe Acrobat File - 49k)