From the outset, New Zealand’s tourism industry was built upon magnificent landscapes, and experiencing these up close.
The Milford Track, New Zealand’s first ‘great walk’, established multi-day walking-in-the wilderness as a cornerstone of the nation’s tourism
offering. Today, DOC manages nine ‘Great Walks’ that traverse New Zealand’s most compelling landscapes, and these are marketed extensively
at home and abroad as truly iconic visitor experiences.
In the year ending June 2019, almost 120 thousand ‘Great Walks’ were booked and completed by Kiwis and international visitors. Ensuring that this
level of success is maintained requires digging further. As noted by the tourism sector regarding the success of New Zealand’s ‘Tourism 2025’
strategy:
“Many tourism businesses and organisations are doing a great job in creating an experience platform where the visitor will recall and
share the details of a memorable visit through pictures, stories and souvenirs with friends and family during their travels and when
they return home. But that is not enough. We need to consistently deliver experiences that exceed visitors’ expectations.”
http://www.tourism2025.org.nz/tourism-2025-archive/enhance-the-total-visitor-experience/
Exceeding visitors’ expectations requires a clear understanding of what benefits walkers are seeking from their ‘Great Walk’ experience,
and how satisfied they are that these have been delivered. By looking at factors associated with walkers’ ‘satisfaction’,
DOC is able to identify key opportunities for making improvements that matter to customers and exceed their expectations.
More than 89% of all respondents (sample size: 5799) reported being ‘very satisfied’ or ‘extremely satisfied’ with their overall great walk experience. This confirms that the current management settings for the ‘Great Walks’ continue to deliver the benefits walkers are seeking, ensuring their ongoing success as premium visitor experiences.
| Satisfied with Great Walks Experience | Percent |
|---|---|
| Extremely | 49 |
| Very | 41 |
| Moderately | 8 |
| Slightly | 1 |
| Not at all | 1 |
While useful, overall satisfaction ratings do not provide sufficient insight into key factors driving walker satisfaction. A closer look at those who recorded being satisfied, especially those ‘Extremely’ satisfied, can help identify these key factors, and provide greater clarity for the ongoing maintenance and improvement of ‘Great Walks’.
Two questions in the survey stood out for their association with walkers being ‘Extremely satisfied’
1. ‘Condition of the huts/shelters/campsites’
2. ‘I experienced natural soundscapes/tranquility’
70% of those responded that they were extremely satisfied with the condition of the huts/shelters/campsites expressed extreme satisfaction with their overal experience, compared with only 37 % of those who were less satisfied with the condition of these facilities.
Similarly, 65% of those responded that totally agreed with “I experienced natural soundscapes/tranquility” expressed extreme satisfaction with their overal experience, compared with only 37% of those who expressed less agreement.
When these two factors are put together, only three groups showed higher than the average level of being extremely satisfied overall ( 49%).
Those who were extremely satisfied with the condition of facilities had very high levels of being extremely satisfied overall with those who totally agreed about soundscapes/tranquility at 79% and those who agreed a lot at 64% The other group with higher than average extreme satisfaction overall (at 57% ) were those who totally agreed about experiencing soundscape/tranquility, but who were very ( rather than extremely) satisfied with the condition of facilties.
These findings clearly communicate two benefits that ‘Great Walk’ management settings must continue to deliver to walkers:
1. Well maintained and presented facilities; and
2. Highly natural soundscapes that are consistent with the natural landscapes in which the ‘Great Walks’ are located.
When asked to describe their ‘Great Walk’ experience in three words, “Beautiful” was the word most commonly (29%) volunteered by walkers. ‘Beautiful’ along with other words such as “spectacular”, “stunning” and “scenic”, confirm that ‘Great Walks’ continue to connect visitors to outstanding and truly memorable natural settings. Appendix 1 reveals that “beautiful” is consistently chosen by international walkers irrespective of nationality.
The most common words appearing in the open-ended commects given for ‘Highlights’ of the ‘Great Walk’ experience were “scenery” and “views”, one or other appearing in 1263 of the responses.
In contrast, the most common words for ‘Lowlights of the ’Great Walk’ experience were weather related, with “weather” or “rain” occurring in 385 responses. It is notable that “none” appears in the “Lowlights” wordcloud, with 24 responses of “none”, compared with zero (1) such entries for highlights.
When the highlights and lowlights are combined in one wordcloud, it is clear that respondents are reporting higlights more frequently that lowlights.
Australians and Canadians top the list for mentioning that their ‘Great Walk’ experience was challenging, while French and German walkers barely mention this. (Table 1). Appendix 1 reveals that for Australians, the word “challenging” came close as the most common descriptor of the ‘Great Walk’ experience (107 occurrences compared with 105 for “beautiful”).
| Nationality | Percent challenged |
|---|---|
| Australian | 21 |
| Canadian | 16 |
| US | 15 |
| NZ | 14 |
| (all) | 13 |
| French | 10 |
| UK | 10 |
| Other | 6 |
| German | 4 |
In general, the more mountainous ‘Great Walks’ present the greatest level of challenge, compared with the less mountainous and coastal ‘Great Walks’ (Table 2). Further analysis is required to identify the key factors that contribute to perceptions of challenge, and how these may vary by nationality.
| Great Walk | Percent challenged |
|---|---|
| Kepler Track | 20 |
| Tongariro Northern Circuit | 17 |
| Routeburn Track | 15 |
| Whanganui Journey | 14 |
| (all) | 13 |
| Milford Track | 12 |
| Lake Waikaremoana Track | 12 |
| Heaphy Track | 10 |
| Abel Tasman Coast Track | 8 |
| Rakiura Track | 6 |
The ‘Great Walk Guest Survey’ for 2018/19 comprised an integrated pair of web-based questionnaires that ran for the duration of the ‘Great Walk’ walking season (01/10/2018-14/05/2019). The questionnaires included both quantitative and qualitative questions.
This report relates to the following ‘Outcomes Monitoring Framework’ (OMF) Indicator and Measures for ‘Intermediate Outcome 3: New Zealanders and our visitors are enriched by outdoor experiences’:
Measure 3.2.2.2: Experiences, facilities and services provided reflect the expectations and preferences of intended customers
Measure 3.2.2.3: Experiences, facilities and services provided are safe for intended customers.
The Department of Conservation’s (DOC’s) Outcomes Monitoring Framework provides a platform on which DOC and others can assess outcomes in a clear, structured and transparent way (Lee et al., 2005). It has been developed as a logical hierarchy that is based on broad, overarching Outcomes, beneath which are nested Outcome Objectives, Indicators, Measures and Data Elements to provide ever increasing levels of detail. The framework is scalable, as the indicators and measures remain compatible and consistent whether applied locally, regionally or nationally.
The recently updated framework provides a roadmap for gathering information to meet the specific objectives of DOC and other agencies (McGlone and Dalley, 2015). The provision of a national framework with agreed outcomes, indicators and measures supports collaboration with land management and regulatory agencies, allowing for more integrated environmental policy and ‘State of the Environment’ reporting. DOC has partially implemented a national monitoring and reporting system, whereby priority indicators and measures are routinely used to report on progress against the objectives and outcomes.
McGlone, M., Dalley, J., 2015. A framework for Department of Conservation inventory and monitoring: Intermediate outcomes 1-5. Landcare Research Contract Report LC2427 (unpublished) for the Department of Conservation, Wellington.
27 August 2019