part in travel and destination choice as more and more people seek out holiday experiences with a purpose. For example, visitors increasingly want to learn from Traditional Custodians, understand cultural connections to Country and support Indigenous-led tourism ventures.
Combining the ideas of authenticity, sustainability and uniqueness, one area of travel that is growing in popularity is‘ dark sky tourism’. This is a form of nature-based tourism focused on experiencing night skies free from light pollution. It appeals to travellers who seek immersion in natural environments and opportunities to observe the stars, planets, and celestial events in pristine conditions.
In New South Wales, Warrumbungle National Park is Australia’ s first dark sky park and the first in the southern hemisphere. Siding Springs Observatory, on the park’ s outskirts, is home to Australia’ s most important visiblelight telescope and one of the few observatories in the world that can observe the whole southern-hemisphere sky. In regional Western Australia, which is home to a large number of welcoming, small country towns and low levels of light pollution, dark sky tourism is growing in popularity. According to Tourism WA, of all interstate and intrastate visitors, 89 % show moderate to high interest in travelling to stargaze.
By its very nature, dark sky tourism is perfectly suited for regional areas, as the smaller the town, the darker is the night sky. Dark sky tourism also presents an opportunity to engage with First Nations culture and storytelling. For example, in Western Australia, Astrotourism WA pairs western science with local First Nations perspectives on the night sky and has even created star charts of Aboriginal constellations.
Active Travel Recreational sports are becoming an integral part of travel plans with sport and recreational-oriented trips among the top choices of travellers globally. As one example,‘ run travel’, also referred to as‘ runcations’ or‘ racecations’, provides an opportunity for travellers to combine their interest in running with discovering new destinations. The opportunity this presents for destinations with the infrastructure and environment to facilitate this type of activity is huge, as running and run club participation continues to grow rapidly in popularity.
Running App Strava recorded a 59 per cent increase in running club participation globally in 2024 and according to a recent survey by travel search engine Skyscanner, 50 per cent of Australian respondents plan to engage in a running trip in 2025, with 92 per cent of those surveyed either participating or hoping to participate in an endurance event.
The opportunity to cater for this market goes well beyond road running events, with trail running and related endurance events a major growth sector. A global report on the state of trail running, prepared in collaboration with World Athletics, studied trail running race participation data from 1984 to 2022. It includes 15.6 million race results from 117 races in 127 countries and is the most extensive report on trail running participation ever conducted. It found, among other things, that trail running had grown 231 % in the 10 years to 2022. While the global pandemic saw organised trail running participation numbers fall, by 2022 the numbers had begun to recover strongly.
The study also showed that trail races are getting longer. While the 5 kilometre distance once accounted for 75 % of all races, by 2022 it accounted for only 45 %. Nevertheless, while trail races are on average 24.63 kilometres long, trail running differs to road running in that it offers participants a greater diversity of distances and degrees of difficulty as measured by elevation. This reduces barriers to entry and presents opportunities for destinations to design and offer a variety of trail races as part of a larger event, with the potential to attract a much wider array of‘ active travel’ visitors.
Dark Sky in the Warrumbungles, New South Wales( source: Destination NSW)
VOL 18 NO 3 2025 30 www. edaustralia. com. au