Disasters, market changes and ‘the big smoke’: Understanding the decline of remote tourism in Katherine, Northern Territory Australia

The chapter draws on a wide range of data sources and insights collected by the authors during more than a decade long involvement in tourism-related research in the Northern Territory. This includes formal interviews with a number of current and former tourism stakeholders involved in Katherine tourism since the 1970s; informal discussions with locals and tourism stakeholders conducted during several visits to Katherine and the surrounding area between 2005 and 2016; unstructured observations collected during numerous tourism and government stakeholder meetings in Darwin (as part of activities organised by Tourism NT and the Tourism Research Group at Charles Darwin University); and analysis of past and contemporary public documents (e.g. regional tourism development strategies, local marketing plans, newspaper articles), as well as secondary population and visitor data records (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2017; Tourism Research Australia, 2017).