Kokoda tourism was not created by Government – it was created by individual entrepreneurs who took a risk to invest in the emerging industry after the 50th anniversary of the Kokoda campaign in 1992.

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 such as Bali, Fiji, New Zealand, New Caledonia and French Polynesia who attract millions of tourists each year while PNG only gets a few thousand.

These countries spend millions marketing their destinations in Australia – PNG spends virtually nothing!

PNG is not an easy destination to sell due to concerns people have regarding safety, hygiene, corruption, poor governance, and because their treks can be illegally blocked by disgruntled landowners trying to hold the Government to ransom.

This is probably why major international travel companies shun PNG and focus on other adventure destinations such as New Zealand, Mt Kilimanjaro, the Himalayas, Africa and South America.

It is therefore left to smaller Australian companies to invest in marketing treks across the Kokoda Trail – those in the business understand that ‘marketing and selling’ are the most time-consuming and expensive part of their operation due to cost of websites, social media, travel. insurance, etc.

Once in PNG they have to deal with the PNG Kokoda Track Authority (KTA), a government agency which has no expertise in management, military heritage, or tourism.

Since the ‘Kokoda Initiative-CEPA-KTA alliance’ took control of the KTA 15 years ago they still haven’t worked out how trekkers can book a campsite or how to build a single hygienic toilet across the entire 138 km Trail to meet the needs of their paying customers – they haven’t even been able to work out how to develop a database or a trek itinerary management system.

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

As a result, Kokoda trekker numbers have almost halved since the DFAT funded ‘Kokoda Initiative’ took control of it through CEPA and the KTA in 2009 – this has led to a cumulative LOSS of around K45 million in forgone wages for guides and porters, campsite fees, and local village purchases!

PNG is now the only country in the world which allows its most popular tourism destination to be managed as an environment park for the benefit of foreign aid-funded officials rather than as a tourism enterprise for the economic benefit of traditional landowner communities across it!

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, policy, rules, and regulations to encourage private investment and minimise the risk for entrepreneurs – these costs are 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 managed as an unaccountable aid-funded environment bureaucracy rather than as a commercial tourism enterprise – this has resulted in Government appointees to the management authority who have no expertise in commercial business management, good governance, military heritage, or pilgrimage tourism.

The solution is for government to transfer responsibility for the Kokoda Trail from environment to tourism and appoint a professional Board of Directors with expertise in business management, community engagement and international tourism rather than cronies who will continue to fight over the diminishing spoils of their most popular tourism destination.

Government should then seek to use the provisions of their Lands Act to acquire the gazetted area of the 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 dissident landowners.

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

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