A Sector Worth Steering Forward

Self-Drive Tourism in Western Australia: A Sector Worth Steering Forward

Executive Summary

Western Australia’s self-drive tourism sector forms a large and high value component of the visitor economy. Regional travel, local spending, and extended stays across the State rely heavily on visitors who travel by road. Despite this contribution, strategy and investment rarely give this sector the attention given to aviation driven visitation and traditional trade marketing.

This opinion piece presents a clear argument for renewed strategic attention toward the self-drive visitor market in Western Australia. The perspective draws on more than 35 years of professional experience across the state’s tourism and hospitality sector, including leadership roles within industry associations, collaboration with regional and state tourism organisations, and extensive engagement with travellers at consumer and travel shows across Australia and international markets.

The observations and views expressed reflect long-term industry involvement and direct exposure to traveller behaviour, market trends, and stakeholder priorities within Western Australia’s visitor economy

Self-drive travel has changed across the past two decades. Visitor demographics have shifted. Expectations have risen. Travel behaviour now shows stronger demand for authentic regional experiences, longer stays, and greater local spending. Strategy now must reflect this change.

This opinion advocates a shift in marketing and destination development priorities toward stronger recognition of the self-drive visitor market. The perspective highlights gaps in data, research, and direct consumer engagement which limit full understanding of this sector. The views presented outline practical actions which strengthen knowledge of the market and support improved outcomes for regional communities.

A central view expressed in this opinion supports commissioning a comprehensive independent statewide study of the self-drive visitor market. Such work would quantify economic contribution, examine visitor behaviour, identify regional dispersal patterns, and inform future investment decisions. The perspective also supports the establishment of a dedicated self-drive tourism leadership role within Tourism Western Australia, alongside increased direct engagement with consumers through national travel shows, events, and industry partnerships.

The intent remains constructive and collaborative. Western Australia and its local and regional tourism organisations have achieved strong progress in growing the visitor economy. This opinion seeks to complement existing strategy through stronger recognition of a sector which already contributes significant economic activity across regional Western Australia.

Self-drive travellers travel further into regional Western Australia, stay longer, and spend directly with local businesses. Their travel patterns link lesser-known towns, national parks, and landscapes with visitors who seek meaningful experiences beyond capital cities.

Recognition of this opportunity requires a broader view of visitor markets and investment priorities. Improved research, targeted marketing, and closer alignment with observed consumer behaviour would support regional dispersal, strengthen small tourism operators, and improve the resilience of the state’s tourism economy.

This opinion presents a respectful yet direct argument for greater recognition of the self-drive visitor segment within Western Australia’s statewide tourism strategy. With informed investment and greater focus, this sector offers significant capacity to deliver stronger economic benefit across regional communities while supporting a diverse and sustainable visitor economy.

The purpose remains clear. Encourage forward thinking across the sector, promote collaboration among industry partners, and support a stronger future for regional tourism throughout Western Australia.

Reasoning for the Report

This opinion arises from a clear gap between the recognised importance of the self-drive visitor market and the current level of understanding, marketing focus, and destination development directed toward this segment.

The perspective reflects decades of direct consumer engagement across Australia and international markets, along with extensive professional involvement throughout regional Western Australia as a hotelier, tourism operator, and tourism consultant. Continuous interaction with travellers at consumer shows and industry events provides a consistent view of the scale, behaviour, and economic contribution of the self-drive market.

Self-drive travellers form a visible and active presence across Western Australia. Yet their role within the visitor economy receives limited recognition within current state or regional tourism direction and marketing activity.

Characteristics of the Self-Drive Visitor

• They travel greater distances across regional areas and remain in destination longer than many other visitor segments.

• Their expenditure spreads across multiple sectors including fuel, food and beverage, accommodation, tours, attractions, vehicle maintenance, permits, retail, and local services.

• Their travel patterns reach beyond traditional tourism centres and extend into smaller towns, national parks, and remote landscapes. This behaviour supports regional dispersal and strengthens local economic resilience.

• Their demographics span multiple generations. Couples, families, retirees, and multi-generational groups all participate in this style of travel.

• Their activities extend well beyond caravan and camping travel and include touring, cultural experiences, nature-based tourism, and regional exploration.

Despite these observable characteristics, several inconsistencies remain evident. State and regional marketing updates rarely reference the self-drive market directly. Marketing campaigns often feature imagery of road travel and open landscapes, yet the strategic focus and marketing investment behind these campaigns does not appear aligned with the visitor segment portrayed.

Participation in direct consumer engagement, both nationally and internationally, remains limited. This restricts Western Australia’s visibility within a large and high value visitor audience.

This opinion does not present criticism for its own sake. The intention supports constructive recognition of an important tourism segment and encourages deeper understanding and more strategic support for a visitor market which already contributes significant value across regional Western Australia.

Key Highlights of the Self-Drive Sector

Economic Scale and Influence

Available sector data shows the significant economic contribution generated by activities closely associated with self-drive travel.

• The caravan and camping sector contributes approximately $3.1 billion in annual visitor expenditure across Western Australia, according to the Caravan Industry Association of Western Australia.

• Recreational fishing contributes an estimated $1.8 billion in annual expenditure, based on data from Recfishwest.

• Cycling activity generates approximately $1.985 billion each year through the cycling economy, including trail and adventure riding, according to WestCycle.

• Trails tourism, hiking, and outdoor recreation contribute a further $1.9 billion in expenditure each year, based on figures published by the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions.

Taken together, these sectors illustrate the scale of economic activity associated with travellers who explore Western Australia by road.

Diversity of the Self-Drive Traveller

The self-drive visitor market spans a broad and varied range of traveller types.

• The segment includes modern grey nomads with strong financial capacity, adventure travellers, fishing and boating enthusiasts, wildflower visitors, families, dark sky observers, and an emerging group of digital nomads and social media driven travellers.

• Following the COVID period, many new travellers entered the self-drive market after investing substantial capital in vehicles and touring equipment. Expenditure of $200,000 to $400,000 on four-wheel drives, caravans, and touring equipment now appears common within this segment.

• The demographic profile continues to expand. Families, younger travellers, women travelling independently, couples without children, and solo travellers form a growing proportion of the market.

• Multi-generational travel also appears frequently within the self-drive segment, with extended families travelling together or meeting at regional destinations.

Depth of Regional Dispersal

Self-drive travellers travel widely across the state and often reach locations beyond areas served by aviation.

Although strong interest remains in well promoted destinations such as Broome, Exmouth, Margaret River, and Rottnest Island, many travellers continue beyond these centres into smaller towns and remote landscapes.

Common travel routes and destinations include national parks across the state, remote touring routes such as the Gibb River Road, the Tanami Road, the Goldfields Discovery Trail, the Holland Track, the Great Central Road, and several of the historic Len Beadell desert tracks.

This style of travel also supports pastoral station stays and remote destinations such as Mount Augustus and Dirk Hartog Island.

Consumer Behaviour Insights

Self-drive travellers often show different planning and booking behaviour from other visitor segments.

Many travellers do not commit to firm bookings and prefer flexibility within their itineraries, particularly when travelling across remote regions. Others plan months or years in advance but confirm reservations closer to the travel date.

Direct booking with operators remains the preferred approach for many travellers. The segment also relies heavily on tactile planning tools such as printed road maps, touring guides, and visitor centre publications.

Digital tools also play a strong role. Travellers frequently use GPS mapping platforms, tablet based navigation systems, and mobile applications alongside traditional planning resources.

Printed collateral, peer reviews, podcasts, YouTube travel content, and trusted travel influencers strongly influence decision making within this segment.

Travel timing often aligns with seasonal and natural events, including wildflower seasons, fishing periods, regional events, and favourable weather conditions.

Marketing Disconnect

A clear difference appears between observed visitor behaviour and the strategic focus of many marketing programs.

State and regional and local  marketing activity often places strong emphasis on aviation access and trade driven markets, frequently framed around the concept of the high yield visitor.

This narrative overlooks a substantial group of travellers who deliver comparable economic value while travelling extensively across the state by road.

Destination marketing regularly features road trip imagery across landscapes and regional settings. In many cases this imagery appears symbolic rather than supported by targeted strategy, product development, or marketing investment directed toward the self-drive market.

Measurement and Research Gaps

Several limitations remain within current tourism measurement systems. Existing visitor tracking tools such as the National Visitor Survey, aviation data sources, and transport datasets capture air travel movements effectively but provide limited insight into vehicle based travel.

Origin data collection for campground visitation within national parks remains limited and does not appear widely available for broader tourism analysis.

Clear consumer segmentation for vehicle-based travellers also remains limited. Structured feedback mechanisms from this group remain minimal despite the scale of their travel across regional Western Australia.

Critical Gaps and Misconceptions

Consumer Misprofiling

Destination marketing has often portrayed self-drive travellers as budget conscious or limited in their spending patterns. Observed behaviour across the market suggests a different profile. Many self-drive travellers represent high value consumers who invest significantly in vehicles, equipment, and extended travel. Their spending reflects a preference for autonomy, flexibility, and authentic regional experiences rather than reduced expenditure.

Marketing Imbalance

Tourism marketing activity continues to focus strongly on aviation access and trade driven markets. This approach limits recognition of visitor segments who travel extensively across the state by road and contribute significant economic activity to regional communities.

Available visitor data indicates regional dispersal from interstate and international markets ranges between 7 percent and 20 percent across Western Australia’s tourism regions. These figures include FIFO and corporate travel, which obscures the true scale of leisure driven regional visitation. Current measurement therefore provides an incomplete picture of leisure travel patterns across the state.

Such low dispersal levels suggest a structural gap in both strategy and measurement. Inclusion of detailed self-drive visitor data would support clearer insight into travel behaviour and inform stronger regional tourism outcomes.

Measurement Challenges

Existing national visitor surveys and related data sources capture aviation movements with reasonable accuracy but provide limited insight into the complexity of vehicle-based travel.

Free camping, unpowered camping, national park stays, pastoral station accommodation, informal sites, and extended seasonal travel receive little consistent measurement. Roadside stops, remote access sites, and community or council operated campgrounds also remain largely outside formal data collection systems.

This gap reduces visibility of a substantial portion of regional travel activity across Western

Australia.

Lack of Standardisation in Information Delivery

Regional tourism organisations and local visitor centres produce their own visitor guides, maps, and planning materials. These publications provide valuable local information but lack consistency across the state. Cartographic style, symbols, route markings, and information structures differ significantly between regions. For travellers planning journeys across multiple regions this fragmented approach creates unnecessary complexity.

Self-drive travellers move from one region to another without a consistent reference framework. Long distance travel across Western Australia requires clear and practical planning tools which reflect the realities of extended road travel.

A coordinated suite of statewide planning materials would present consistent mapping, route information, attraction markers, and visitor services across all regions. Greater integration would support clearer route awareness and encourage travellers to extend their journeys beyond single regions.

Consistent design standards and integrated mapping across regional planners would present Western Australia as a connected touring network rather than a series of isolated destinations.

Perceived Lack of Glamour

The self-drive visitor market often receives less strategic attention than international or aviation-based visitor segments. This perception has contributed to lower levels of investment and engagement despite the strong economic contribution delivered across regional Western Australia.

Fragmented Stakeholder Engagement

Engagement with organisations connected to the self-drive market often occurs in isolation rather than through coordinated strategy. A broader statewide approach would benefit from stronger collaboration between industry and government stakeholders. These include the Caravan Industry Association of Western Australia, Recfishwest, WestCycle, the Charter Boat Industry Association, local governments and visitor centres, the Department of Transport, Main Roads Western Australia, and the Road Safety Commission.

Improved coordination across these organisations would support stronger planning, promotion, and infrastructure development for road-based travel.

Underutilisation of Indigenous Experiences

Indigenous tourism experiences across regional Western Australia remain underrepresented within marketing directed toward self-drive travellers.

Opportunities exist to increase visibility of experiences such as Camping with Custodians, cultural interpretation programs, Indigenous guided tours, and Indigenous owned accommodation. Greater promotion of these experiences would support cultural tourism development while offering meaningful experiences for travellers exploring the state by road.

Detailed Recommendations

Commission a Statewide Self Drive Tourism Study

• An independent statewide study would provide a clear evidence base for policy, planning, and marketing decisions.

  The study should include participation from state agencies, regional tourism organisations, and relevant industry stakeholders. Its purpose would measure the economic contribution generated by self-drive travel and document the scale of visitor dispersal across Western Australia.

• Research should identify consumer personas, travel motivations, booking behaviour, social contribution, marketing triggers, and barriers which influence travel decisions.

• The study could segment travellers across vehicle categories such as recreational vehicles, four-wheel drives, campervans, and motorhomes. Segmentation should also examine travel purpose including fishing, stargazing, family travel, nature exploration, photography, and cultural tourism.

• Accommodation and travel models should form part of the analysis, including free camping, pastoral station stays, national park camping, caravan parks, motels, and other accommodation types.

• Detailed mapping of travel flows across regions would provide insight into visitor movement patterns and highlight areas with potential for greater visitation.

Create a Dedicated Self Drive Sector Role within Tourism Western Australia

• A dedicated leadership role within Tourism Western Australia would provide focused coordination across the sector.

• This role would support industry partnerships, oversee development of maps and visitor planning tools, guide production of relevant marketing collateral, and coordinate participation at consumer shows and events.

• The role would also assist regional communities in preparing destinations for self-drive travellers through improved information, infrastructure awareness, and visitor services.

• The position would connect research, destination development, domestic marketing, and international representation across the agency.

Expand Consumer Engagement

• Current engagement with the self-drive sector occurs largely through caravan and camping shows held in four capital cities. This activity provides valuable exposure but limits national reach.

• A broader event strategy would strengthen engagement with the self-drive, caravanning, and outdoor recreation markets. Participation should extend to additional regional and specialist events across Australia.

• Opportunities exist through boating, four-wheel drive and outdoor recreation exhibitions, travel shows, regional field days, and outback festivals. These events attract audiences who actively plan extended road journeys across regional Australia.

• Targeted advertising across digital platforms and printed publications should also promote self-drive travel experiences across Western Australia.

Enhance and Expand Road Trip Guides and Visitor Collateral

• Statewide road trip guides should include comprehensive information relevant to long distance road travel.

• Content should include road networks, fuel locations, electric vehicle charging infrastructure, waste disposal points, designated rest areas, quarantine regulations, and major touring routes.

• High quality printed maps suitable for vehicle use should complement digital planning tools.

• Partnership with established cartographic organisations such as Hema would strengthen mapping consistency across regional holiday planners and tourism publications.

Refocus Indigenous Tourism Strategy

• Greater visibility of Indigenous tourism experiences would strengthen cultural tourism across the self-drive market.

• Camping with Custodians experiences should receive stronger promotion among domestic travellers exploring the state by road.

• Strategic focus should include practical consumer facing promotion alongside trade engagement.

• Support for WAITOC member participation at domestic consumer events would improve visibility of Indigenous tourism experiences and support direct engagement with travellers.

Partner with Strategic Industry Bodies

• Stronger collaboration with organisations connected to the self-drive market would support coordinated development across the sector.

• Relevant partners include the Caravan Industry Association of Western Australia, Recfishwest, WestCycle, Main Roads Western Australia, the Road Safety Commission, regional shires, and local government tourism teams.

• Joint initiatives could promote road safety, environmental awareness, responsible travel, and regional economic development.

• Establish the Western Australia Self Drive Collective

• A formal working group would provide structured collaboration across industry, tourism, government, media, and community stakeholders.

• This collective would serve as a central voice for the self-drive economy and provide a forum for shared planning and strategic alignment.

Develop Self Drive Marketing Guidelines

• Clear marketing guidelines would support consistent messaging across regional tourism organisations and local destinations.

• These guidelines should promote regional dispersal, storytelling, accessible travel experiences, and deeper understanding of self-drive visitor behaviour.

Benefits of Supporting the Self-Drive Sector

Recognition of the self-drive sector would deliver broad benefits across Western Australia.

Regional Economic ResilienceRoad based travel supports towns which rely heavily on mining or agriculture by generating additional visitor expenditure.

Local Business ActivitySpending flows across a wide range of businesses including fuel stations, supermarkets, bakeries, accommodation providers, cafés, mechanics, tour operators, and visitor centres.

Employment and Skills DevelopmentTourism activity linked to road travel creates employment across hospitality, maintenance services, guiding, infrastructure management, and visitor services.

Community WellbeingVisitor activity supports regional events, community initiatives, and locally driven tourism projects.

Efficient Marketing ReachWord of mouth, peer reviews, social media content, and travel storytelling extend the reach of destination promotion far beyond traditional marketing campaigns.

Infrastructure DevelopmentGrowth in self-drive travel encourages investment in practical infrastructure including waste disposal points, rest areas, amenities, electric vehicle charging facilities, signage, and road safety improvements.

Conclusion

Western Australia’s tourism sector benefits greatly from travellers who explore the state by road. Despite this presence, the self-drive visitor segment receives limited recognition within current strategic planning, marketing direction, and data measurement.

Observed travel patterns show strong and sustained contribution from this sector across regional Western Australia. These travellers move widely across the state, remain in destination longer, and spend directly with local businesses. Their journeys connect towns, national parks, landscapes, and communities across regions which rely on visitor activity for economic stability.

Greater recognition of the self-drive sector would strengthen regional tourism outcomes. Improved research, clearer market segmentation, targeted marketing activity, and stronger collaboration across government and industry would provide a more accurate understanding of this visitor segment and support informed planning.

The views presented throughout this opinion reflect long term industry observation and engagement with travellers across Australia and international markets. The intention encourages constructive discussion and practical action among state, regional, and local tourism organisations.

Recognition of the self-drive market does not require a change in direction for Western Australia’s tourism strategy. Rather, it requires broader inclusion of a visitor segment which already contributes significant economic value across the state. Strengthening understanding and support for this sector would reinforce the diversity, resilience, and long-term sustainability of Western Australia’s visitor economy.