Creating Australia's National Landscapes: Issues of collaborative destination management

Innovative and holistic approaches to destination marketing and management are needed to ensure that protected areas are managed, marketed and governed effectively alongside adjacent lands. This paper discusses Australia's National Landscapes Program, a collaborative nationwide initiative between parks and tourism agencies, local and state governments, and the private and non-profit sectors. A critical appraisal framework is presented for the various elements of the Program: geographical, ecological, socio-economic, cultural and visitor information. This paper argues that the approach adopted may be applicable for other collaborative destination management initiatives. It demonstrates the importance of adopting a geographical perspective in assessing nation-wide initiatives that takes full account of spatial challenges. Dimensions such as the scale, distances and accessibility compound the implementation challenges facing initiatives such as Australia's National Landscapes Program. These challenges include ecological and socio-economic diversity, the number and variety of constituent organizations and understanding the current visitors, both domestic and international. The paper provides a potentially useful reference for jurisdictions that intend to implement large-scale collaborative destination management frameworks. It is noted that the challenges of identifying a common vision, objectives and measures of success, and of managing the politics of collaborations between different government levels and industry sectors, are magnified for larger-scale initiatives.