Valuing tourism spend arising from visition to Queensland National Parks

Source: CRC Sustainable Tourism
"Queensland is one of the world’s most naturally diverse tourism destinations. Its five World Heritage areas and multitude of national parks and forests are integral to attracting visitors to this state. While visitation to Queensland protected areas is high, the state-wide economic contribution of related visitor spending was effectively unknown prior to this study being undertaken. The first phase of The Valuing Tourism Spend in Queensland National Parks Study was designed to provide an assessment of tourist spending associated with national parks at the regional level. The results of this study indicate that a best estimate of visitor spending associated with national parks (NPs) is approximately $4.43 billion per annum with $749 million per annum in national park-generated spending. As such, study results emphasise the key importance of NPs to the Queensland tourism sector, and the Queensland economy more generally, in that national park-associated spending represents approximately 28% of total annual tourism expenditure in the state with national park-generated spending representing approximately 4.7% of the total."