Hughes, Karen, and Moscardo, Gianna (2019) Fun with fungi in the forest: making tourist experiences more sustainable with quality interpretation. In: Proceedings of the BEST EN Think Tank XIX. pp. 58-74. From: BEST EN Think Tank XIX: Creating Sustainable Tourist Experiences, 30 June - 3 July 2019, San Francisco, CA, USA.

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Abstract

For many years tourism has been criticized for its negative impacts on the natural and built environment; impacts that range from pollution, litter and erosion to habitat destruction, wildlife disturbance and graffiti. Yet tourism has also been championed as a way to increase public awareness of environmental issues and enhance people’s commitment to adopting sustainable practices both at tourist sites (Brown, Ham & Hughes, 2010) and in their daily lives (Ballantyne, Hughes, Lee, Packer & Sneddon, 2018; Ballantyne, Packer & Falk, 2011; Walker & Moscardo, 2014). While some attention has been paid to managing the negative environmental impacts of visitation, little attention has been given to using visitor experiences as a way to encourage greater sustainability beyond the site (Moscardo & Murphy, 2014; Walker & Moscardo, 2014).

This paper seeks to direct attention to this issue by describing the design of a more sustainable set of tourist experiences at Binna Burra Lodge in Australia. After reviewing the issues linked to sustainable tourist experiences and the relevant literature on sustainability communication it will explore a specific case study of Binna Burra Lodge in the world heritage protected rainforests of southeast Queensland in Australia. It will describe the steps involved in designing a set of tourist experiences based on communication about rainforest fungi and present some preliminary interpretive materials arising from these steps. The overall aim is to demonstrate the application of research findings for sustainability practice in tourism.

Item ID:	61315
Item Type:	Conference Item (Research - E1)
ISBN:	978-0-6485037-9-8
Keywords:	sustainable tourist experiences, interpretation, stories, rainforest
Copyright Information:	These proceedings are published under a Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/)
Date Deposited:	08 Jan 2020 00:52
FoR Codes:	35 COMMERCE, MANAGEMENT, TOURISM AND SERVICES > 3508 Tourism > 350806 Tourist behaviour and visitor experience @ 100%
SEO Codes:	90 COMMERCIAL SERVICES AND TOURISM > 9098 Environmentally Sustainable Commercial Services and Tourism > 909899 Environmentally Sustainable Commercial Services and Tourism not elsewhere classified @ 100%
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