Management Concern: Moderate    

Adequacy of Information: Moderate

Summary extracts from Outlook Report 2009

• Visitors to the Great Barrier Reef are consistently very happy with their visit and would recommend the experience. Typically people visit the Great Barrier Reef to enjoy swimming, fishing, boating and snorkelling.
  
• Marine tourism extends throughout the Great Barrier Reef, but its impacts are concentrated in a few intensively managed areas.
• The predicted increase in tourism and recreational use of the region may result in more conflicts of use and loss of amenity, but there is no evidence of this to date.
  

What do we know?

Relevant pages from Outlook Online include:

• Economic value of recreational activities
• Range of activities undertaken by recreational users
• Conflicts of use and overcrowding
• Visitor satisfaction 
  
• Marine tourism impacts on the Great Barrier Reef 
• Impacts of tourism and recreational use on the Great Barrier Reef
• Impacts of pontoons on the Great Barrier Reef
• Moorings 
• Effects on coral from SCUBA divers 
• Impacts of fish feeding at tourist pontoons
• Effectiveness of no anchoring areas

Existing policies and management actions

• High standard tourism operations 
• Ecocertification of Marine Park operators
• Use of tourism permissions in the Marine Park
• 15 year permits 
• Visitation with the top 50 tourism operators versus total visitation
• Tourist visitation to directly managed sites
• Policies and guidelines for managing tourism and recreational use
• Site Management Arrangements   
• Responsible Reef Practices 
• Vessel sewage management
• The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Zoning Plan
  
• Tourism, recreation and community engagement
• Communicating with tourism and recreation stakeholders
• International recognition of tourism management achievements 
• Plans of Management
  

Future management requirements

• Overarching Great Barrier Reef tourism strategy
• Great Barrier Reef recreation strategy.

Defined research questions

• There are currently no defined research questions for this topic. Research questions will be developed, giving priority to interactions/issues that are of most concern to management.

Related information

• Current Research and Monitoring