Last chance tourism at the Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers, Westland Tai Poutini National Park: Stakeholder perspective

Abstract

Understanding the impacts of climate change on tourism destinations requires knowledge about both physical resources and the characteristics of tourism at that destination; stakeholders involved in tourism facilitation and management not only connect the tourist to the physical resource, but are also an integral part of the destination in their own right. This report summarisesthe findings from 13 interviews with stakeholders associated with tourism at the Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers in Westland Tai Poutini National Park on the West Coast of New Zealand’s South Island. These interviews traversed themes including: the importance of the glaciers as visitor attractions; perceptions and experiences of change in the glaciers over time; business and management perspectives of glacier change; and stakeholder perspectives on visitor experience at the glaciers. The research represents the first part of a study investigating ‘last chance tourism’ and was completed during August-September 2013. While the data reported here speaks directly to a number of key objectives of the research project, the material also provided valuable baseline information from which the visitor survey undertaken in the second part of the project was developed (for a full survey report see Wilson et al., 2014).