Crocodiles and Top End visitors: A meta-review of tourist perceptions, motivations and attitudes towards a controversial local icon

This paper undertakes a review of a number of separate studies on the role of a single species (the saltwater crocodile or Crocodylus porosus) for a specific group of stakeholders (the tourists) in a specific regional location (the Top End of Australia) where the crocodile population features centrally as a tourism icon and local cultural symbol. The key objective of the paper is to build knowledge about wildlife tourist experiences by gathering and integrating information from a number of different studies undertaken in the 1990s which displayed distinc t methodologies by covering a wide range of quantitative and qualitative methods as well as distinct target respondent groups. The paper embraces a meta-analytical outlook appropriate for the dual purpose of uncovering the complexity of the information at hand and attempting to draw some implications for our understanding of wildlife tourist demand. It acknowledges the complex nature of the relationships between concepts linked with the tourist experience (motivations, attitudes, attractors, expectations, knowledge, satisfaction...) as well as the difficulties encountered when comparing methodologies (the diverse types of quantitative and qualitative instruments which have been used and their construction). The main purpose for undertaking this survey is to extract as much information about tourists' experiential relationships with crocodiles without getting caught in excessively lengthy discussions of methodological issues. Much knowledge has been accumulated about connecting and contrasting the findings of the various studies featuring crocodiles and their role in the tourist experience of the Top End of Australia. Useful implications are derived in the conclusion.