UNCORRECTED PROOF Tourism Management ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]] Biosecurity and wine tourism C. Michael Hall à Department of Tourism, University of Otago, P.O. Box 56, Dunedin, New Zealand Received 10 September 2003; accepted 12 June 2004 Abstract Biosecurity is a major issue for agricultural-based economies such as Australia and New Zealand. The paper provides a framework for biosecurity management strategies at the pre-border, border, and post-border stages of biosecurity threat. Issues of biosecurity are then examined in more detail with respect to the wine industry and wine tourism and one specific aspect of biosecurity control, the customs declaration form. A survey of wine tourists in New Zealand was conducted and it was noted that many of them did not recognise vineyards or wineries in the present descriptors used on the Australian and New Zealand customs declaration forms. Further questioning found that given the mobility of wine tourists that they posed significant biosecurity threats for wineries, many of which had no biosecurity strategy in place. The paper concludes that the utility of present customs declaration forms to the wine industry in New Zealand is questionable while also noting the need for biosecurity strategies to be adapted at a winery and vineyard level. r 2004 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Keywords: ’; ’; ’ 1. Introduction: tourism and biosecurity The world is increasingly mobile. Improvements in transport and communications technology, population growth, deregulation and internationalisation of the world economic system, and moves towards ‘free trade’ have all encouraged greater mobility of goods, services, ideas, businesses and people. Tourism is an important part of the growth in population mobility. However, increased movements of people across political and physical borders may have a number of unintended and unwanted consequences. One of the most significant of these is the extent to which travellers and the transport systems they use may act as vectors for diseases or pests, which in themselves may host or transport diseases (e.g., Russell, 1987; Carlton & Geller, 1993; Berkelman, Bryan, Osterholm, LeDuc, & Hughes, 1994; Bernard & Scott, 1995; Wilson, 1995; Fidler, 1996; Ginzburg, 1996; Borgdorff & Motarjemi, 1997; Ka¨ferstein, Mo- tarjemi, & Bettcher, 1997; Legors & Danis, 1998; Cookson, Carballo, Nolan, Keystone, & Jong, 2001; Seys & Bender, 2001)(Table 1). In order to combat the introduction of pests and diseases many countries and regions have introduced biosecurity strategies. Biosecurity refers to the protec- tion of a country, region or location’s economic, environmental, and/or human health from harmful organisms. ‘Biosecurity involves preventing the intro- duction of harmful new organisms and eradicating or controlling those unwanted organisms that are already present’ (Biosecurity Strategy Development Team, 2001a, Section 1.3). Although tourism is a major focal point for biosecurity measures there is little discussion of the significance of biosecurity measures in the tourism studies literature. Indeed, the industry itself may be unaware of the role that it plays in biosecurity manage- ment. For example, of the 122 submissions received on the ‘Issues Paper: Developing a Biosecurity Strategy for New Zealand’ (Biosecurity Strategy Development Team, 2001b) only one came from the tourism industry 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39 41 43 45 47 49 51 53 55 57 59 61 63 65 67 69 71 73 75 77 79 ARTICLE IN PRESS www.elsevier.com/locate/tourman 3B2v8:06a=w ðDec 5 2003Þ:51c XML:ver:5:0:1 JTMA : 1135 Prod:Type:FTP pp:128ðcol:fig::NILÞ ED:B:P:Ramya PAGN:Vishwanath SCAN: 0261-5177/$ - see front matter r 2004 Published by Elsevier Ltd. doi:10.1016/j.tourman.2004.06.011 à Tel.: +64-3-479-8520; fax: +643-479-9034. E-mail address: cmhall@business.otago.ac.nz (C. Michael Hall).