Indigenous tourism in Australia: understanding the link between cultural heritage and intention to participate using the means-end chain theory

ABSTRACT

Tourism is often suggested as a development strategy for Indigenous people while protecting their cultural and natural heritage. However, without actual visitor participation, the good intentions of tourism cannot be achieved. By using the means-end chain theory and adopting a convergent mixed-methods approach using photographs, this study seeks to identify the link between visitor perceptions about Australian Indigenous tourism attributes and their intention to participate on this type of tourism. Two Australian Indigenous tourism activities (short tour and performance), portraying both traditional and contemporary culture, at Cairns, Queensland were tested with 209 visitors. The results reveal that the attributes ‘history/art/culture’ and ‘local’ are perceptions linked to Indigenous tourism. The findings support previous studies by identifying that some participants associated Indigenous tourism with a traditional past; however, the majority of participants expressed a contemporary perception of Indigenous culture. These findings highlight the need for Indigenous tourism stakeholders to monitor and protect their historical and evolving cultural heritage (in particular intangible heritage) when engaging in Indigenous tourism. Cultural heritage could be susceptible to commodification and loss of authenticity in order to accommodate visitor expectations.

KEYWORDS:

• Aboriginal
• cultural heritage
• authenticity
• visitors
• motivations
• participation

Acknowledgements

The author would like to acknowledge the Moondani Balluk Indigenous Academic Unit, Victoria University for providing financial support for the fieldwork. The author also gratefully acknowledges the visitor information centre at Cairns, QLD for allowing me to conduct the data collection within its premises.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Dr Trinidad Espinosa Abascal recently finished her PhD at the College of Business, Victoria University, Melbourne. Her PhD focused on understanding consumer behaviour for Indigenous tourism. She has published in international peer-reviewed journals and presented at international conferences. With training and experience in finance, experience as lecturer and tutor at different Universities and as a co-founder and director of a NFP organisation in Australia, she possesses proven multidiscipline expertise. She was recently awarded the Victoria University’s Vice-Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence in Research and Research Training (Research Degree Graduate).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Victoria University Indigenous Central Research Grant.