Bird Watching Tourism
As a Doctorate student at Charles Darwin University (Darwin, Northern territory) Australia, my research focus is on Special Interest Tourism: Bird watching in West Papua. I have been very fortunate to have received a scholarship from Computer Sciences Corporation/NT Government Department of Corporate and Information Services and a supplementary scholarship from Australia’s Sustainable Tourism Cooperative Research Centre to complete the research project.
Background to bird watching tourism in West Papua
Bird watching tourism can be described as special interest tourism, whereby the tourist chooses a destination based on its suitability for pursuing a special interest/activity.
West Papua contains 269 endemic bird species (WWF Indonesia 2000). To provide a comparison, Australia contains 350 endemic bird species, the United Kingdom only 1 endemic and the United States 67 (Valentine and Birtles 2004). West Papua is remote, lacks tourism and public infrastructure, is culturally diverse, and has recently experienced some interest in visiting the province for the purposes of bird watching tourism (per comm. P.Gregory 2006). According to Valentine and Birtles (2004), Indonesia has high quality bird watching tourism potential as it has extraordinary diversity, very high concentrations, high endemism and a good start to a habitat protection program.
West Papua may possess the potential for tourism ventures specialising in bird watching. However, very little is known about the activity of bird watching in remote and undeveloped regions, the people who pursue these types of tourism opportunities, the companies that provide for organised bird watching tours to remote tourism destinations or the level of infrastructure provision necessary to facilitate bird watching tourism.
The study aims to increase knowledge about bird watching tourism generally, and to develop and test a community based tourism model in West Papua, Indonesia. I have specifically targeted the UK and Australian bird watchers as unlike the United States bird watchers, very little is known about their market preferences in relation to setting attributes, experiences and level of skill in the activity.
For more information contact Planning Places.
References
Valentine, P. and Birtles, A. (2004) Wildlife Watching. In Wildlife Tourism: impacts, management and planning. Higginbottom. K (ed) Commonground Publishing: Australia.
WWF Indonesia (2000) Biodiversity of Irian Jaya. Conservation Science Department of WWF Indonesia - Sahul Bioregion. members.tripod.com/wwfsahul_cs/ffij.htm accessed 1st of May 2007.
Gregory, Phillip (July 2006) Personal Communication regarding Birdwatching tourism generally and West Papua specifically. Mr Phil and Mrs Sue Gregory are the owner operators of Sicklebill Safaris and Cassowary House.
