Tas: Don t destroy our nature, tourism chief warns

AAP General News (Australia)
02-01-2001
Tas: Don t destroy our nature, tourism chief warns

By Don Woolford

HOBART, Feb 1 AAP - Australia's tourist industry would collapse if too much of its
wilderness was destroyed, Australia's top tourist executive warned today.

"We have to maintain our natural environment," Australian Tourist Commission (ATC)
managing director John Morse told journalists.

Mr Morse, in Hobart for an ATC board meeting, praised Tasmania's wilderness attractions
and said the island could expect an ever-growing share of Australia's overseas tourists.

At the same time, a group of eco-tourism operators in Tasmania's far south said logging
and the sight of clear-felled forests could destroy tourism in their area.

Mr Morse refused to comment on their claim, saying he didn't know the details.

"But we have to work very, very hard in Tasmania, as we do in the rest of Australia,
to preserve the reason why people come here," he said.

"And that is our natural attractions."

Mr Morse said whether the sight of clear-felled forests would turn tourists off would
depend on its size.

Small, isolated cases probably would not.

"But if we don't have great natural attractions, we don't have a tourist industry," he said.

Mr Morse said Tasmania's international tourist numbers were up 25 per cent last year,
more than double the national average.

Its growing international appeal was evident from the accolades it had received from
prestigious overseas travel publications.

It had been voted number one temperate island in the world by Conde Naste Traveller
magazine for two consecutive years. Travel and Leisure magazine had just nominated it
as the hot eco-travel destination for 2001.

He expected most of Tasmania's tourists to come from Europe and the United States,
with growing interest in Asia.

Most would be people seeking a natural environment - "people with money who are interested
in lifestyle".

In the ATC's promotion of Australia's natural attractions, Tasmania was a standout
with places such as the Great Barrier Reef and Uluru (Ayers Rock), he said.

AAP dw/cjh

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