Indigenous tourism research, past and present: where to from here?

ABSTRACT

Indigenous tourism is a global phenomenon, encompassing a range of complex, multi-layered issues. The foci of Indigenous tourism research are multifaceted, reflecting a plethora of stakeholders with differing perspectives and values about the direction, development and sustainability of the sector. The academic literature consistently highlights the need for a more comprehensive understanding of Indigenous tourism and, specifically, one that takes into account the interests and values of its stakeholders. This paper provides a global overview of Indigenous tourism development and its international and national institutional links, concomitantly identifying and examining the trajectory of scholarly interest in Indigenous tourism from 1980 to 2014. An analysis of 403 published journal articles is supplemented with the perspectives of Indigenous tourism researchers. The results reveal that sustainability issues underpin and shape a substantive proportion of published Indigenous tourism research to date. The challenge now is to gain a more comprehensive understanding of Indigenous tourism from the perspective of Indigenous stakeholders, approaching its complexity in an iterative, adaptive and flexible style, and with affected stakeholders involved in the research process, knowledge creation and its outcomes. This is both an ethical imperative and a pragmatic approach to ensure the outcomes of research facilitate the sustainability of Indigenous tourism.

本土旅游研究，过去和现在：从现在往哪里去？本土旅游是一个全球现象，包括一系列的复杂的多层次的问题。本土旅游研究的重点是多方面的，反映了对该产业的方向，发展和可持续性有着不同的意见和价值的过多的利益相关者。学术文献不断地突出对本土旅游的特别全面地理解，和特别是考虑到利益相关者的兴趣和价值。该文章提供了一个本土旅游发展的全球观点和它的国际和国内的制度性的联系，同时审视和识别1980-2014年间的本土旅游学术兴趣的轨迹。403份发表的杂志文章的分析和本土旅游研究者的观点相补充。结论揭示了可持续性问题，巩固和塑造到现在为止发表的大量的本土旅游研究。现在的挑战是从本土利益相关者的角度中得到一个对本土旅游更全面的理解，在一个迭代的，适应性和灵活的风格下解释其复杂性，在研究过程中包含的被影响到的利益相关者，知识创造和它的结果。这是一个道德必要性和务实的做法，来保证研究的结果帮助本土旅游的可持续性。

KEYWORDS:

• Indigenous tourism
• development
• Indigenous tourism research
• sustainable Indigenous tourism

关键词:

• 本土旅游
• 发展
• 本土旅游研究
• 可持续性本土旅游

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to acknowledge the contributions of Megan Axelsen and Giang Phi who assisted in collating the catalogue of papers that form the basis of this paper. The authors also gratefully acknowledge the valuable contributions of Professor Bernard Lane for his insightful and thorough editing of the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michelle Whitford

Dr Michelle Whitford is a senior lecturer and programme director of the Bachelor of international tourism and hotel management in the Department of Tourism, Sport and Hotel Management at Griffith University. Her research expertise includes event policy and planning and Indigenous tourism. Dr Whitford's research work includes co-coordinating projects in the area of Indigenous tourism and events; she has co-coordinated research projects for organisations including the Sustainable Tourism Cooperative Research Centre, the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Studies and numerous Australian Government agencies.

Lisa Ruhanen

Dr Lisa Ruhanen is an associate professor and programme leader for tourism postgraduate courses in the UQ Business School, The University of Queensland. She has been involved in over 30 academic and consultancy research projects in Australia and overseas. Her research areas include Indigenous tourism, sustainable tourism destination policy and planning, and climate change. Lisa has worked extensively as a consultant, external collaborator and is an executive committee member in a variety of divisions of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation.