Evaluating natural attractions for tourism

As nature-based tourism grows, protected areas will witness increasing pressure froth tourists, with the quality of destination attributes exerting a considerable influence over their experience, An evaluation and rating system may help tourists to select sites, enhance their satisfaction, and encourage them to act responsibly. Managers may also gain a better understanding of how to operate such sites. The paper proposes a hierarchical structure for the assessment of protected areas by the assignment of priorities to the various elements of the structure. By applying the Standard Deviation Method, the research categorized Victorian parks in Australia into four levels, which were found to correlate closely with prevailing visitation levels and with park popularity. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.