Perceptions of the Northern territory by travel agents in Kuala Lumpur

This paper describes the responses of 38 travel agents in Kuala Lumpur to a questionnaire about the potential demand of residents in Kuala Lumpur for holidays in Darwin and the Northern Territory, Australia. Two main forms of analysis are used in this paper — first, a classification of responses through a descriptive content analysis and second, an analysis derived from neural network software. The data suggest a lack of knowledge on the part of potential tourists about the Northern Territory, and more generally indicate that there is little interest in some of Australia's major tourist icons such as the ‘outback’ and Aboriginal culture. Nonetheless, a niche market is thought to exist for Darwin — as a stop‐over destination, a short break location, or as one of two destinations in multi‐destination holidays.