Tropical gardens and their potential as tourism attractions in Northern Australia

Globally, gardens are popular attractions with recent research finding that the botanical garden in Cairns is one of the city’s top attractions. Capitalising on the garden’s tourism appeal offers another opportunity to enhance the city’s attractiveness as a tourism destination, but also raises a number of questions about the recreation needs of local residents versus the needs of visitors as well as about future funding models. Using the Cairns Botanic Gardens as a case study, this research explores the underlying aspects and issues of the management of successful garden attractions in a tropical setting. Issues discussed include visitor management strategies, aesthetics, funding as well as safety with the aim to support other tropical regions in developing their destination through garden tourism.