Australian Geotourism Discovery Platform: A Sustainable and User-Friendly Platform for Accessible Exploration of Geosites, Geotrails, Cultural, and Mining Heritage Sites

Abstract

Geotourism focuses on an areas’ geodiversity and cultural landscape to provide visitor engagement, learning, and enjoyment. Geotourism is pivotal in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as recognised by the United Nations. This study examines the development of the Australian Geotourism Discovery Portal (AGDP) and its role in promoting sustainable geotourism, aligned with Australia’s National Geotourism Strategy strategic goals, and in providing a framework for the development of digital platforms for geotourism. The AGDP’s development was guided by a deductive development approach to examine the link between Geographical Information Technologies (GITs) and SDGs and subsequently applying findings to a stakeholder-led design process aligned with the needs of identified putative user groups. With a focus on two key user groups, the ‘Grey Nomads’ and ‘Students & Educators’, we used our deductive approach to iteratively test and refine the platform’s development based on the key attributes and preferences of these user groups for different accessibility, educational, and experiential needs. The AGDP employed ESRI ArcGIS Hub Web-GIS technology to promote geosites, geotrails, mining sites, indigenous cultural heritage sites, and GeoRegions in Australia. The implementation of the AGDP highlighted the potential to enhance public understanding of Australia’s natural and cultural heritage and the significant opportunity to leverage emerging GITs in maintaining the sustainable development initiatives of the geotourism sector. The framework established provides a replicable model that can be adapted and applied to other regions around the world, offering a tool and process development that can be used in a range of stakeholder- and community-led sustainable development initiatives.