Abstract:

This paper describes the first comprehensive survey of travel conducted in the Northern Territory of Australia. As with many countries with small populations but many features of national and historical interest to travellers, tourism is very important to the Territory. Its population, although growing rapidly, is only 125,000. They occupy 1.346 million square kilometres, an average of only one person per 11 square kilometres. For this survey, it was impractical to interview visitors at their points of entry to the Territory, or departure. For reasons of time, distance, expense and sampling difficulties, it was also impracticable to interview visitors during the day at the places they visited. The only practicable possibility was to interview them in the evening or early morning at their places of accommodation. Five classes of accommodation were identified. Each presented its own sampling problem.