Discovering wildlife tourism: a whale shark tourism case study

Abstract

This paper investigates the different sources of information used by tourists to learn about a particular wildlife tourism activity, specifically, whale shark tourism at Ningaloo Marine Park in Western Australia. The findings from this research concur with previous studies of wildlife tourism showing that wildlife tourism operations are reliant on more informal and general forms of promotion, in particular word of mouth and guide books. Conversely, more deliberate marketing mechanisms, such as the internet and documentaries, are not extensively utilised. To disaggregate consumer preferences for various information sources, this article segments the population into more homogenous groups, thereby demonstrating distinct differences in the choice of information source based on the participants' normal place of residence.