In the lead-up to the 50th anniversary of ‘Independence’ PNG is now the only country in the world which allows its most popular tourism destination to be managed as an environment park controlled by foreign aid-funded environment officials, consultants, anthropologists, archeologists, and social engineers rather than as a tourism enterprise for the economic benefit of its own traditional landowner communities!

Kokoda tourism was created by individual entrepreneurs who took a risk to invest in the potential of the emerging trekking industry after the 50th anniversary of the Kokoda campaign in 1992 – it was not created by Government which showed no interest in the pilgrimage over the previous 50 years!

Contrary to popular belief in PNG, Australians are not queuing up to trek across the Kokoda Trail because they have other options that are cheaper, safer, cleaner, and more reliable including neighbouring Bali, Fiji, New Zealand, New Caledonia, and French Polynesia who attract millions of tourists each year while PNG only gets a few thousand.

It is therefore left to smaller family-sized companies to invest in the marketing and management of treks across the Kokoda Trail and accept the risks involved in trying to do business in what is now the most corrupt country in APEC.

Corruption and government ineptitude are the primary reasons major international travel companies shun PNG and focus on other adventure tourism destinations such as Mt Kilimanjaro, Everest Base Camp, Machu Picchu, Patagonia, Gallipoli and the Western Front which attract millions of adventure tourists while PNGs most popular tourism destination, the Kokoda Trail, attracts just over three thousand.

Canberra has not helped – since they took control of the PNG Kokoda Track Authority (KTA) 15 years ago trekker numbers have plumetted by 42 percent despite a significant increase in staff and a multi-million-dollar aid budget!

Under normal circumstances an administrator would be appointed to stem the slide and manage the industry while authorities investigated the reason for such a dramatic fall in patronage.

An administrator would seek to understand why the KTA, which operates under the auspices of Canberra’s aid-funded ‘Kokoda Initiative’, refuses to publish newsletters, financial reports, or even answer emails – and why It operates as an unaccountable government agency which has no expertise in commercial management, military heritage, or pilgrimage tourism.

Nobody knows what they do or where the money they collect for trek permits goes because they have never published an annual financial report which leads to well-founded suspicions of corruption – their website, which has not been updated for 12 years, is irrelevant.

Those with extensive experience in international tourism believe the Kokoda Trail has the potential to be a high-value, world-class pilgrimage tourism destination capable of providing a sustainable economic future for its traditional landowner communities.

They are also aware that the job of government is to develop infrastructure, develop policy, and create rules to encourage private enterprise to invest with manageable risk – these costs are inevitably recovered through the imposition of taxation which allows for further public investment.

The dramatic fall in trekker numbers is because PNG has allowed Kokoda tourism to be captured by shrewed foreign bureaucrats who know how to use ‘aid-for-influence‘ to enlist the support of political grifters in PNG to support their ideological agenda which is not related to pilgrimage tourism across the Kokoda Trail. This is evident in their failure to invest in the identification, restoration and interpretation of a single battle site across the entire 138 km Kokoda Trail since they took control of it 15 years ago, in 2009.

In the lead-up to the 50th anniversary of ‘Independence’ PNG is now the only country in the world which allows its most popular tourism destination to be managed as an environment park controlled by foreign aid-funded environment officials, consultants, anthropologists, archeologists, and social engineers rather than as a tourism enterprise for the economic benefit of its own traditional landowner communities!

The recent illegal blockade unexpecadly exposed their agenda and their dismal management record!

The solution now is for PNG to break the cycle of aid-dependency by transferring responsibility for the Kokoda Trail from ‘environment’ to ‘tourism’ and appointing a professional Board with expertise in commercial management rather than cronies who will continue to fight over the diminishing spoils of their most popular tourism destination at the expense of village communities across the Trail.

In the lead-up to the 50th Anniversary of Independence next year the PNG Government should seek to break the cycle of foreign contol by using the provisions of their Lands Act to acquire the gazetted area of their Kokoda Trail, which extends to 10 metres either side of the route between Owers Corner and Kokoda, as a national tourism asset to avoid any future threats from the inflence of foreign officials; rogue Port Moresby based landowners; and local grifters who spend most of their time trying to syphon off trek permit fee income and aid-funds for their own benefit.

But even then, it’s going to take a long time to recover from the recent illegal blockade which has led to PNG now being regarded as an unreliable tourism destination for international tourists.

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