Using destination community wellbeing to assess tourist markets: A case study of Magnetic Island, Australia

•Wellbeing needs and aspirations of a small island destination community are identified.•A series of tourism products that support community wellbeing needs are designed.•Markets for these community wellbeing based tourism products are identified and profiled.•Comparisons to traditional market segmentation techniques show the value of this approach.

Small island destinations face a number of issues related to tourism and its sustainability. Recent discussions of destination development and marketing have suggested that new approaches to tourism management and marketing are needed to address these sustainability issues and that these should be centred on the concept of destination community wellbeing (DCW). This paper examines these issues in the context of a small island destination in Northern Australia. The history of tourism development on Magnetic Island (MI) since the 1980s is a troubled one, with extensive community conflict over various proposed developments and ongoing issues with trust and damage to social capital. A program of engagement was conducted to determine current perceptions of how tourism might contribute to, or detract from, community wellbeing at this destination. While this program identified a number of tourism planning options, only limited attention was paid to the potential markets to support these options. The present paper considers how destination marketing could be used to support more sustainable tourism development for small island destinations. It demonstrates a different approach to tourist market segmentation using a survey of actual and potential visitors to MI to identify and assess tourist markets in terms of their potential to make positive contributions to the DCW of MI. This market segmentation process, which uses tourist characteristics consistent with the DCW elements, needs and aspirations of the MI community, is compared to more traditional market segmentation techniques, showing the value of a sustainability focussed segmentation strategy.