Experiencing 'natural' heritage

There have been a number of studies conducted on visitation patterns to the Wet Tropics rainforest in north-east Queensland, Australia. However, little has been undertaken in exploring the visitors' attitudes and behaviours (based on activities pursued) in the rainforest, and their ‘experience’ of this World Heritage environment. This papers sets out to advance research in this area by drawing on over 1000 surveys conducted with domestic and international visitors in various sites in the rainforest throughout 2008. Broad trends emerged that when on-site, visitors demonstrated a propensity to learn from the environmental and cultural information relevant to these rainforest sites. In terms of activities, visitors participated in a range of passive and active rainforest activities, the most popular of which included rainforest walks (76.4% of respondents), viewing scenery (72.6%) and viewing wildlife (59.3%). The significance of these findings is that they deepen our understanding of how ‘natural’ heritage visitor sites are gazed upon, experienced and consumed by visitors.