Tourist visits to the Far Northern management area

The following graphs show visitation to the Far Northern Management Area including full day visits, part day visits and visits by those who are exempt from paying the Environment Management Charge (EMC). Full day visits are the best gauge of the general trend of tourism in the Marine Park. The data is displayed by financial and calendar years and does not include coral viewing activities or scenic flights. Monthly data are available in .csv format.

Visitation by financial year

Total visitation to the Far Northern Management Area including full day visits, part day visits and visits by those who are exempt from paying the Environment Management Charge (EMC), commencing July 1993, finishing June 2012, by financial year. From a total of 7453 visitor days in the 1993-1994 financial year, visitation then declined to 3830 visitor days in 1994-1995. Following this, a steady increase in visitation was seen, with 8657 visitor days recorded in 2000-2001. Visitation decreased markedly in 2001-2002 to 5545 visitor days, but began to increase in 2003-2004, reaching 8494 visitor days in 2005-2006. Visitation peaked in the 2006-2007 financial year with a total of 14,879 visitor days, but then declined rapidly in the following years, dropping down to 3871 visitor days in 2009-2010. Visitation increased markedly to 8699 visitor days in 2010-2011, but then decreased again, with 4714 visitor days recorded in 2011-2012. 

Visitation by calendar year

Total visitation to the Far Northern Management Area including full day visits, part day visits and visits by those who are exempt from paying the Environment Management Charge (EMC), commencing July 1993, finishing December 2011, by calendar year. From a total of 5669 visitor days in the 1994, visitation declined to 4733 visitor days in 1995. Following this, a slow increase in visitation was seen, before rapidly increasing to 7569 visitor days in 1999 and 9578 visitor days in 2000. Visitation decreased markedly in 2001 to 5701 visitor days, but began to increase 2004, reaching 8881 visitor days in 2005. Visitation peaked in 2006 with a total of 13,909 visitor days, but then declined rapidly in the following years, dropping down to 5662 visitor days in 2010. Visitation has since increased with 6539 visitor days recorded in 2011.

Important information about this data

  1. The data represents visitors to the Great Barrier Reef who used commercial tourist operations.
  2. Data is updated quarterly following receipt of Environmental Management Charge returns from tourism operators.
  3. The count of visitor days to the Marine Park is calculated where passengers undertake a visit as follows:
    • Full day visits:
      • A day trip of more than three hours is recorded as a full day visit
      • Overnight trips are recorded as multiple full days, for example, a stay of two-days and one night is counted as two full day visits.
    • Part day visits:
      • Where the trip is less than three hours
      • The first day of a trip entering the Marine Park after 5 pm
      • The last day of a trip leaving the Marine Park before 6 am
    • Exempt visits are passengers who are not required to pay the Environmental Management Charge (EMC), for example:
      • Young children who are free-of-charge
      • Trade familiarisation passengers who are free-of-charge
      • Passengers for whom another operator has already paid EMC on that day
      • The fourth and subsequent days for passengers on extended charters.
  4. The data for 1993 represents six months visitation as data collection commenced in July 1993.
  5. Recording part day visits began in the fourth quarter of 2001.  These figures were previously included with the full day visits.
  6. The recording of coral viewing activities (for example, glass bottom boat tours) commenced in July 2007. This data is not included in the graph (above).
  7. The recording of scenic flights commenced in October 2009. This data is not included in the graph (above).
  8. The data does not include transfer passengers (for example ferry passengers).
  9. The data presented has not been validated. 
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