A macromarketing approach to tourism planning in emerging destinations

Management of natural resources is a pressing issue for governments and citizens, especially the tourism industry, which often relies on environmental, social or cultural resources that may be depleted from overuse. There is a need to conceptualise a tourist area as a system, since approaches that treat each aspect of the system as independent and in isolation are inadequate. Economic, political or social change may overwhelm a system. This paper introduces three complementary approaches that can address the challenges faced by emerging destinations, using Ningaloo Marine Park (NMP) as a context. The Tourism Area Life Cycle (TALC) Model will be applied to understand the evolutionary stages. Marketing systems theory provides a structure to classify the system. The Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) Framework has established enabling conditions for successful resource management which NMP may be appraised against. The paper concludes with a discussion of research issues arising from these approaches.