Visitor safety in recreational protected areas: exploring responsibility-sharing from a management perspective

The management of visitor safety in protected areas is characterised by complex responsibility-sharing relationships. Utilising the Delphi technique as a qualitative research tool, this paper explores responsibility from the perspective of protected area managers within an Australian context. Through an iterative series of email-based exchanges, managers described their responsibilities illustrating a relationship between visitors (representing the party at risk) and themselves (the managing agency representing the party in authority). A three-dimensional framework was developed through a consensus-driven process, defining the context within which risk management decisions are made. The three dimensions comprise geographical, service and marketing. The results of this study offer conceptual guidance for managing agencies to systematically establish higher-order responsibility parameters in order to plan visitor risk management interventions. The usefulness of the results to guide future research is discussed.