Telling people about the park
It is important that visitors to Kakadu can learn about the park's natural and cultural features. Aboriginal traditional owners want visitors to learn about the park and their culture and to come to understand why Kakadu is important to them. This can be encouraged through sensitive promotion, provision of information, and interpretation.
The Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts provides the public with visitor guides, visitor centres, displays, signs, brochures, and ranger-guided walks, talks and slide shows and liaises with the tourism industry, in order to:
- promote and interpret Kakadu as a cultural landscape, an Aboriginal place
- promote and explain the joint management philosophy of the park
- promote and interpret the natural and cultural heritage features of the park and their conservation significance
- encourage the use of accurate information about the park
It is also important that tour operators and tourism organisations use accurate information about the park when talking to clients, promoting tours, or promoting Kakadu as a tourism destination.
Promotion forms people's expectations before they arrive, and affects their experience. If they are given unrealistic expectations-for example, through the use of photographs of Jim Jim Falls in the wet season for promoting dry season land-based tours-visitors will probably be disappointed and not go on to recommend the tour they used or Kakadu as a destination. Accurate promotion and information, on the other hand, can greatly increase visitors' enjoyment of the park, and increase the likelihood of return visits and favourable recommendations of tours and the park.