Reflections and Futures - Tourism and Trails: Cultural, Ecological and Management Issues - page 254

small-scale, locally-developed trails, and respecting the views and rights of
native peoples where the route crosses into their jurisdiction or touches on
indigenous themes (Furniss, 2000).
The final point on planning and development relates to trail design.
This topic is not an instruction manual for trail design and monitoring and
therefore does not provide hands-on details about these practices, for there
are many sources that do provide application instructions. Nonetheless, we
have presented a range of issues that developers need to be cognizant of,
including location, slope consideration and gradient, signage, trail ameni-
ties, access, and the possible need to use trails to deflect pressure away from
more popular areas. It is pertinent to note three of these issues which, if
done incorrectly, can have major implications for trail use and overall satis-
faction: how much physical alteration should take place - hardening as this
can influence accessibility; the level of signage; and the number and range
of trail amenities provided.
Management
We take the position that trails and routes are very much a part of the
public recreation and tourism domain, and so the focus in this topic is
management of their use in ways that maximize the quality of the user
experience. To achieve this, a mix of supply and demand management
approaches was presented both conceptually and within case studies to
demonstrate that the techniques or what some writers call 'tool kit' (e.g.
Hall & Lew, 2009) will vary depending on the nature and characteristics of
the route/trail, the scale involved and the setting(s) or landscape(s) in
which they are located.
Part of the discussion of supply-leaning management entailed how best
to design trails to address high-frequency use, to ensure all possible users
have access and where necessary specific design features are put in place to
mitigate physical impacts. From demand management perspectives, the dis-
cussion was geared toward the most appropriate methods of interpretation,
how trails can be effectively funded, and the extent of formalization of edu-
cating visitors.
Given the mix of landscapes routes traverse, several visitor management
frameworks and procedures were evaluated as part of the management 'tool
kit'. These frameworks emphasize either maximizing opportunities or
imposing limits. There is very limited evidence that these frameworks and
procedures have been applied to trails and routes as they were deliberately
designed for areas rather than linear corridors. That said, we suggest that
there is a certain amount of potential within elements of the opportunity
frameworks that could be used toward effective administration of linear
spaces. Preference remains with carrying capacity and trying to determine
acceptable limits, but again there is a dearth of conceptual thinking on linear