Technical Information

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Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Technical Information

How many people visit regional South Australia?

This document describes the sources of information, advice, methods, indicators and data processing procedures used to develop this report. Reliability of data, as well as metadata attributes, are also described.

State NRM Plan Guiding Target:

Maintain the productive capacity of our natural resources.

State NRM Plan Representative Measure:

Number of tourists visiting regional SA and number of people that visit parks.

Data collection period:

2005–15.

Expected frequency of reporting:

Annual.

Data sources:

1. Number of visits to each region and estimated expenditure of visitors in each region (2015) were sourced from National Visitor Survey and International Visitor survey, by Tourism Research Australia (TRA). Note: TRA regions have been

approximated to equal NRM regions (details provided below). Tourism data was only available for AW and SAAL as combined regions (Outback & Flinders Ranges).

2. The number of visitors to Kangaroo Island from 2008–15 was sourced from the Tourism Optimisation Management Model (TOMM) Visitor exit surveys.

3. Information on the importance of tourism in each region was sourced from the TRA report: Economic Importance of Tourism in Australia (2011) and TRA regional expenditure estimates (2012–13, unpublished data). As well as ABS data (2009), Cat no.

9503.0.55.001. 2015 information for where we are at comes from regional tourism reports. (Overnight visits, regional visits (overnight & day trips), regional spending (State minus Adelaide), and contribution to state economy.

4. Information on activities that domestic tourists participate was sourced from SA Tourism Commission’s Regional Tourism Profiles and data from the National Visitor Survey.

Indicators used:

1. The number of visits to South Australia and NRM regions (2005–2015) includes domestic and international, overnight and day visits (2005–14). The Kangaroo Island regional snapshot uses TOMM data (2008–15).

2. The estimated expenditure by visitors in NRM regions (2015, data rounded).

3. The estimated economic importance of the tourism industry in each region (2013).

NOTE: The data only includes number of visits NOT number of visitors because one visitor may make many visits/trips.

Methods of data collection and processing:

Alignment of tourism and NRM regions:

The information for this report card is mainly sourced from the TRA, which reports using tourism regions. There are 12 tourism regions in South Australia and these do not exactly align with the 8 NRM regions.

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For the purposes of these report cards the tourism and NRM regions were matched as follows:

NRM regions Tourism regions

South East Limestone Coast

SA Murray-Darling Basin Murraylands and Riverland

Kangaroo Island Kangaroo Island

Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges Adelaide, Fleurieu Peninsula, Barossa and Adelaide Hills Northern and Yorke Yorke Peninsula and Clare Valley

Eyre Peninsula Eyre Peninsula (includes Nullarbor)

SA Arid Lands Flinders Ranges and Outback

Alinytjara Wilurara No tourism region (included within SA Arid Lands)

Note that the data for Northern and Yorke NRM Region may be underestimated because Port Augusta (geographically part of Northern and Yorke) was included in the SA Arid Lands NRM Region, as a result of the matching method used above.

Regional visit numbers and expenditure estimates:

Information on the number of visits and expenditure was obtained from the TRA's International and National Visitor Survey (IVS &

NVS). Every year, about 120,000 Australian residents, and 40,000 international visitors, aged 15 years or over, are interviewed to obtain details of recent trips. The sample is stratified by place of residence, age and sex, and survey results weighted accordingly.

Details of survey methods can be found at Tourism Research Australia.

Research includes visitors travelling for all purposes (leisure, business, employment and other purposes).

Information collected in the surveys includes expenditure characteristics and travel behaviour of domestic and international travellers in Australia. All regional expenditure data presented in the reports are based on day and overnight visits. Expenditure and visitation results are the annual average results for three years from July 2011 to June 2014.

Information relating to Kangaroo Island was also obtained from the Tourism Optimisation Management Model (TOMM), which estimates the number of visitors to Kangaroo Island through a self-completion survey. Visitors voluntarily pick up and fill out surveys at entry and exit points to the Island (airport and ferry departure points). Results are analysed over a full financial-year period. This method has been used on Kangaroo Island for the past 10 years. Data is weighted according to total ferry and air passengers, due to differences in the proportions of people who travel by sea and air.

Importance of tourism industry:

Information about the contribution of tourism to regional economy was obtained from TRA’s report: Economic Importance of Tourism in Australia (p. 20: tourism expenditure divided by output basic prices). In this report the importance of tourism was summarised in 2010 for each tourism region in Australia by expressing the value of each region’s tourism industry as a percentage of the entire local economy. These data were used to calculate the economic importance of tourism by NRM region.

Domestic visitor activities:

The percentage of domestic visitors that participated in an activity was sourced from South Australia Tourism Commission’s Regional Tourism Profiles. These data are based on results from surveys of the calendar year ending 2015. For NRM regions that have more than one tourist region (See table above for SA Murray-Darling Basin, Northern and Yorke and Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges NRM regions), the percentage of domestic visitors that participated in an activity were averaged. Sample size may not be representative for each region. Results should be treated with caution and be seen only as informative.

The percentage of visitors that participated in an activity on Kangaroo Island is based on TOMM surveys, and are a summary of visitors to natural areas only for the 2012–13 period.

Calculating Trends and ‘Where we are at’ scores:

Trends for the state and for each NRM region were calculated using the annual rate of change over a five-year period (e.g. 2011–

15).

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Future reporting measures:

None.

The following government agencies contributed to this report:

SA Tourism Commission.

The following non-government agencies contributed to this report:

None.

Key stakeholders:

Park managers, State and regional tourism industry managers and investors.

Information reliability scoring:

Information is scored for reliability based on average scores given for information currency and applicability, and its level of spatial representation (Tables 1–3).

Table 1. Information currency Reliability Criteria

5 Information up to 3 years old 4 Information up to 5 years old 3 Information up to 7 years old 2 Information up to 10 years old 1 Information >10 years old

Table 2. Applicability of the information Reliability Criteria

5 All data based on direct indicators of the measure 4 Most data based on direct indicators of the measure 3 Most data based on indirect indicators of the measure 2 All data based on indirect indicators of the measure 1 Data are based on expert opinion of the measure

Table 3. Spatial representation of information (sampling design) Reliability Criteria

5 Information is collected from across the whole region/state (or whole distribution of asset within the region/state) using a stratified sampling design

4 Information is collected from across the whole region/state (or whole distribution of asset within the region/state) using a sampling design that is not stratified

3 Information is collected from an area that represents less than half the spatial distribution of the asset within the region/state

2 Information is collected from an area that represents less than 25% the spatial distribution of the asset within the region/state

1 Information is collected from an area that represents less than 5% the spatial distribution of the asset within the region/state or spatial representation unknown

Based on Tables 1, 2 and 3 above, respectively, the information relating to number of visits to regional SA presented in this report has a reliability score of (5+3+3)/3 = 3.67 rounded to 4 (Very good).

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This report is linked to the following report cards/snapshots:

A key attraction for tourists are South Australia's natural resources, many examples of which are protected by national parks.

Trying to get a firm handle on the value of national parks to tourism can be fraught. The former Co-operative Research Centre for Sustainable Tourism reported that an estimated 25 per cent of all tourists visited a national park.

In this way, parks provide an ecosystem service that supports regional businesses:

1. How many people visit state managed parks in South Australia?

2. Is the quality of the River Murray that we drink, swim in and irrigate with improving?

Metadata description:

Project/dataset name: Number of visits to regional South Australia

Abstract/description Information on when, where, why tourists visited various regions collected from National Visitor Surveys (NVS) and International Visitor Surveys (IVS), through interviews and arrival/departure data from Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC), and Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

Data types Numerical data of number of people visiting regions and estimated expenditure.

Organisation/DEWNR business area that

sponsors/holds/manages the data

Tourism Research Australia owns data.

Date range 2005–15

Study area Across South Australia (broken down by NRM region)

Data format Excel (numerical)

Data distribution rules Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License Is the dataset source data (raw),

value-add data

(analysed/summarised) or final indicator/score data?

Value-add

Photo credit details:

Title: Belair National Park Owner: DEWNR

Scientific literature referred to in the report:

Putrill, J. (2013) Our national parks prove a marketer’s nightmare, Weekend Australian, 27 April, pp. 15–18.

Downer, N. (2015) TOMM Kangaroo Island Committee. Visitor Exit Survey 2014–15, Colmar Brunton, Adelaide South Australian Tourism Commission. (2012) Regional Tourism Profiles, South Australian Tourism Commission.

Sustainable tourism cooperative research centre. (2008) Tourism and protected area management sustaining resources.

Tourism Research Australia. (2011) Economic Importance of Tourism in Australia. Australian Government, Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism.