Identifying All the Attractive Sites within the Purnululu National Park - Case Study Example

Running Header: Field report Student’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Course Code & Name: Date of Submission: Introduction For many years Purnululu national park has been the leading tourist destination site in Australia. It is located approximately 300 kilometers on the southern part of Kununura road; this national park is wide as it covers almost 240 hectares. It is one of the most attractive and interesting tourist destinations in the Western Australia region. Bungle Bungles has been the new name for this tourist attraction garden. It is mainly famous and aesthetic because of the mysterious geological striped sandstones, the special size giant band structures, cliffs of sandstones and towers. It comprises of four main ecosystems namely: the mountains of Bungle Bungle, the cleft plateaus dominating the central area of the park, the sand mountains that surround the bungle bungles, a river on the East, side of the park, and the limestone plus the beautiful beaches located on the West and Northern parts of the park. What makes this park more attractive to the tourists is the Bungle Bungle; wonderful plateau created through sedimentation around 300 million years, this was caused by the collision of what is called Gonwana and Laurasia and the famous Indo Australian plate as well as the Pacific plate. These unusual events are the ones which make many local and international tourists to be willing and have curiosity of witnessing the plateau. Purnululu National Park has a record history of over 20 years due to its unbelievable natural beauty; it has features that go beyond any other magnitude scale all over the world. Thus bringing an experience that is remarkable and varies with seasons especially when it is raining or after the rain when there is a striking color (Lambert, Mariam and Susan, 2010) The report aimed at visiting the Purnululu National Park to identify the attitude that is being shown by the residents who visit that park towards tourism in that park and to get what feelings they have for future tourism in that park. This report identified all the attractive sites within the Purnululu National Park, the main objective of the report being assessing the situations in this site to bring out what are the major scenes that tourists get attracted to; this involves visiting the site, collecting information regarding the site as well as taking count of the tourists visiting this site to draw conclusions on satisfaction of visitors to the Purnululu National Park, the number of tourists and the time season preferred by the tourists. This will be done through observation, and use of secondary data available. The tour guide will give as much information as possible regarding the tourism destination and the current status of the local tourism as they have been able to collect data on their course of duty. As indicated by Justin (2007), the National Park consisted of various attraction sites where tourists were interested in. This included the bungle bungle plateau, where by many tourists got attracted due to the unusual appearance, the limestone’s cliffs and the beaches. It was noted that the numbers of tourist went up and varied with time and with the places visited. The climatic conditions experienced in that park are the tropical monsoon climate, in this park there are two seasons; the wet and the dry season. The dry season is experienced from April to October with the day temperatures rising to a high of 30 degrees centigrade, during this time the sky is blue and very clear; t6his is when the number of tourist shoot up as it is the peak season mainly because they are favored by the climatic conditions. Purnululu National Park hosts an estimate of 20,000 tourists in every year. There is a modern center within the park to enable visitors learn more on the cultural; heritage and values plus the conservation measures as they directly interact with each other. Fig 1. Bungle bungles within the Purnululu National Park Note: From Purnululu National Park (p. 23), by Lambart, M., Mariam, T and Susan, F. 2010, Germany: VDM Verlag Dr. Muller GmbH & Co. KG Fig . 2 A beautiful scene of a beach and impressive rocks within Purnululu Park Note: From the Country Guide, by Justin, V. 2007, Australia: Lonely Planet Publications. The Burtler’s life Cycle Model basically illustrates the stages a tourist destination travels through according to the tourists’ numbers attraction over time. In this case the destination was the Purnululu National Park; our destination just like products has life cycles. To begin with this destination begins with slightly lower numbers of tourists as realized mostly they are restricted by limit to access of this destination. This is explained well by the Tourism Area Life Cycle. According to Khaolak (2011),this model also shows that a limitation in the facilities as witnessed in the Purnululu national park as it lacks basic facilities some of them including camping sites and necessities like food whereby tourists have to carry their own parked food. This is a stage known as exploration stage where the site is not well know or discovered. The next stage comes as more people realize the existence of the destination, there is growth in the number of tourists this stage is referred as the development stage, according to secondary sources, and tourist’s numbers grew with time as many people became aware of the fantastic views in this park. In the beginning it was not having good facilities and amenities; the reason why it was not realizing increased number of visitors. But soon amenities began to improve attracting more tourists. As explained by the burtler’s tourism model there is always a peak time in each tourist destination. The Purnululu gates are open during the early months of April; this is the time when the numbers of visitors shoots up due to favorability of the climate. During the other times of the year when there is rain the park remains closed as it is risky to explore as the roads are also dangerous. This leads to a decline in the number of tourists. The factor which puts off visitors to that park is the rise in temperatures especially in the months of October. There is also a number of vegetation such as the closed forest in the gorges, the open forests in the riparian area. Woodlands that are open as well as grassland dominate that park; eucalyptus, acacia and sandstone grevilleas presence improves the aesthetic nature of the park. Tourist arrivals during peak time shoot up rapidly surpassing the carrying capacity of that park. A stage called stagnation as indicated in the growth curve below. As indicated by A, B, C, D and E, after the stagnation period it is clear that Purnululu National Park could be moving in any direction but it is determined by various factors, among them the improvement of the camping facilities and infrastructure to increase the carrying capacity in that park. It became clear that tourists will keep on visiting that park as its positive publication intensifies (Burtler, 1980). Fig . 3 Burtler’s curve showing development of a tourism destination Note: From the Canadian Geographer (p. 11), by Butler, R.W. 1980. Conclusion Tourism has been a major growth industry in many national economies, and Australia among them. This shows that a larger population in the world depends on the growth of tourism. Purnululu tourist attraction site is a famous park in Australia; the main tourist attraction scenes being the wonderful rocks and beaches as well as limestone and cliffs. A larger population of tourists visit hi park at different times according to seasons. The main aim of the trip was well served and accomplished as it was easy to identify the features of that park which makes a huge number of people get satisfied after visiting that park. It became clear that tourism depends on various conditions; the knowledge of the tourism facility or destination, availability of good infrastructure and facilities such as accommodation, seasons of the year among others. There are times when tourists flock the Purnululu Park while in some times of the year the number is low depending on the season of the year. Data collection is quite important in assessing the successfulness of a park and to determine whether the tourism models are practically applicable and in that case it proved to be accurate. Visiting the national park was an eye opener and very informative as it enhanced understanding of the destination life cycle models of tourism. Tourism is a major boost to economies of many nations in the world; conservation is the way forward to rejuvenate a decline in tourists in any attraction site. The Purnululu National Park has for long been well conserved by the government and the departments involved in tourism. References Butler, R.W. (1980).The concept of a tourist area cycle of evolution: implications for the management of resources, The Canadian Geographer 24(2): 5-12. Christaller, W. (1963).Some considerations of tourism location in Europe: the peripheral regions, Regional Science Association Papers 12: 95-105. Justin, V. (2007). The country guide. Australia: Lonely Planet Publishers. Khaolak, (2011). Destination recovery services. Retrieved April 4, 2011, from http://www.destinationrecovery.com/destinationlifecycle.html. Lambert,M., Mariam, T and Susan F. (2010). Purnululu National Park, Germany: VDM Verlag Dr. Muller GmbH & Co. KG. Read More