Four Weel Drive Tourism and Economic Development Opportunities in Remote Areas

Andrew Taylor and Dean Carson

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Desert areas account for around 70% of Australia’s landmass but are home to less than 3% of the population. The economies of many desert areas have been described as marginal or peripheral. Tourism is an important economic activity for desert destinations and one sector, four wheel drive tourism, has been gaining increasing attention. This paper examines the spending patterns of four wheel drive visitors to desert regions of the Northern Territory of Australia and compares them to non-four wheel drive leisure visitors for a five year period from 2000 to 2004. In addition to assessing the amount of expenditure (overall and per day), the research investigates whether there were differences in expenditure items and the dispersal of expenditure among destinations. This information can help inform decisions about levels of investment for attracting the four wheel drive market which might be justified, and the types of product opportunities that might arise from a growing market.

Keywords: Four wheel drive tourism; Desert tourism; Economic contribution of tourism; Remote area tourism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L83 M1 O1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-10-28, Revised 2010-01-16
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Published in TOURISMOS: An International Multidisciplinary Journal of Tourism 2.5(2010): pp. 69-85

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:25315

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