Differnces between Tourism and Recreation in Parks

Tourism means different things to different people. How they define it and how they differentiate between tourism and recreation in national parks reflect their attitudes to the appropriateness of tourism as a park use. This paper reports on a study of leaders of interest groups that have become involved in the political debate over tourism in the Alpine National Park in the state of Victoria, Australia. The study reveals that tourism is an imprecise concept and that the distinction between it and recreation falls along a seven-staged continuum. A strong relationship exists between opinion leaders' definitions of tourism and their responses to a series of attitudinal statements about its acceptability inside the park.