Communities and local economies in the remote regions of Australia benefit greatly from the flow of tourist visitors. The majority of tourist travel occurs on the road network in these areas as a range of traveller types move between destinations. Realising the patterns of tourist flows can prove to be beneficial to planning organisations, smaller communities and individual tourist enterprises as this knowledge can assist in strategic planning processes. Current survey databases of tourists travel behaviour along with data concerning road networks and destination locations allow us to model tourist flows in desert Australia. The resulting Visualising Relatively Unpredictable Movement (VRUM) application provides illustrations of travel path, stopover locations and stopover duration for domestic and international tourists. This paper outlines the structure, processes and outcomes involved in the development of VRUM along with scenario modelling applications. (a) For the covering record of the conference, please refer to ITRD no. E218380.
Abstract