Tourism is the action of people travelling to a new environmental is not their usual location of residence. There are many processes of tourism that all interact together to form temporal variation within the Rotorua district. Rotorua is an inland, medium-sized city and district in the North Island of New Zealand. It is located 460km north of Wellington and 230km south of Auckland in the southern part of the bay of plenty region. There are five main elements involved in the operation of tourism. These include as mentioned in my diagram; tourists and markets, facilities and infrastructure, Industry, regulators and attractions. These have interacted over three time periods which can be split into three phases; Phase 1 Exploration (1840s to 1886) Phase 2 Development (1945 to 1979) and Phase 3 Consolidation and Diversification (1990 to present).
The five elements of tourism have interacted to form temporal variations in the tourists and markets within the Rotorua district. In Phase 1 the exploration phase (1840s to 1886) Rotorua was made up of a small town called Ohinemutu which was the main stop of for people visiting the Pink and White terraces on lake Rotomahana. During this phase the market for tourism was very small as New Zealand was a long distance away from the people who were willing and had enough money to visit. Because of this the only tourists that visited where wealthy tourists travelling from the UK. With limited domestic tourist in this stage because of the strong tribal presence in New Zealand during this phase running and controlling different parts of New Zealand. In Phase 2 tourists numbers hiked dramatically with up to 100,000 tourists visiting annually by 1965 with this furthermore climbing to 500000 annually by 1975.The markets for tourism also changed due to changes in infrastructure that made Rotorua a tourist attraction that was more accessible by domestic tourists then international tourist. The shift in the tourist market also shifted because of the destruction of the pink and white terraces in 1886 which greatly affected overseas international tourist numbers. In phase three tourist numbers skyrocket with over 1 million tourists visiting Rotorua annually. Advertising came back into action making the city internationally as decreases cost and increasing accessible air travel came into play. This stage also saw a huge increase in the number of FIT tourists (free independent travelers) and backpackers went on trips to Rotorua as they continued to travel the rest of New Zealand. Many of the elements of tourism have caused this change in tourists and markets in Rotorua for example the rapid growth and change in attractions and growing reputation as an adventurous location which has subsequently lead to the increase of tourists into Rotorua. Development of attractions has also taken place throughout the three phases which has also played a role in increasing the amount of both domestic and international tourists that vi...
