Beyond whiteness: a comparative analysis of representations of Aboriginality in tourism destination images in New South Wales, Australia

ABSTRACT

Following recent policy statements recognising the need to develop the Aboriginal tourism industry in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, this article examines the extent of Aboriginal peoples’ inclusion in, and contribution to, the destination images for four regional NSW tourism destinations. Taking the destination image for Lake Macquarie, a local government area with the second largest Aboriginal population in NSW, as a starting point, the paper examines how Aboriginal peoples and cultures are positioned in local tourism promotions. Finding that Aboriginal peoples, cultures and heritage are largely absent from the destination image for Lake Macquarie and that the tourist gaze that is encouraged there is one of whiteness, comparisons are then made with other regional tourism destinations in NSW with relatively high rates of Aboriginal tourism, including Brewarrina, the Blue Mountains and Shoalhaven. Aboriginal tourism in these areas appears to provide visitors with multiple ways of seeing and experiencing place. With contemporary as well as heritage linkages, Aboriginal culture is presented as traditional and living, dynamic and innovative. We argue that by incorporating Aboriginal perspectives, destinations can encourage a multiplicity of gazes, disrupting stereotypes and bringing tourism closer to its social development objectives.

超越白人现象：比较分析澳大利亚新南威尔士州旅游目的地形象本土性的代表

最近的政策声明承认应在澳大利亚新南威尔士州发展原住民旅游，本文随后检测了原住民对该州4个旅游目的地形象的参与和贡献程度，以麦加利湖为起点调查了原住民及其文化在当地旅游推广中的定位；发现原住民及其文化传统在当地目的地形象中大量缺失，受鼓励的游客凝视则是白人现象之一；对比了其余有较高比例原住民旅游的目的地；提出通过混合原住民观点，目的地可以培养大量凝视、打破成见及使旅游更接近它的社会发展目标。

KEYWORDS:

• Indigenous tourism
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tourism
• whiteness
• representation
• tourist gaze
• destination image

关键字:

• 原住民旅游
• 土著居民和托雷斯海峡岛民旅游
• 白人现象
• 代表
• 游客凝视
• 目的地形象。

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers, the editors of the Special Issue and Bernard Lane for their feedback on the earlier draft of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. ‘Indigenous’ is a broad term used by governmental and intergovernmental organisations around the world to refer to the original peoples or inhabitants of land or territories (see for example, United Nations Development Group, 2009). In the Australian context, the term Indigenous refers to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and their cultures, languages and lands. Aboriginal peoples are the first nation peoples of mainland Australia and Torres Strait Islander peoples are the first nation peoples of the Torres Strait Islands. This paper will use the term Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders when referring to the Indigenous peoples of Australia generally, and the term Aboriginal when referring to those of the Australian mainland and the specific regions of NSW featured in this study.

2. The First Nation people of Lake Macquarie are the Awabakal people.

3. While we acknowledge that Aboriginal people go by different names in different areas of Australia, such as Koori, Goori or by their language group, such as Awabakal, for the purposes of consistency, this research uses the more general term Aboriginal.

4. Note, these statistics are actually based on the Bourke--Brewarrina area on a four-year annual average as at September 2014. Unfortunately, tourism visitation data were not available for Brewarrina alone at the time of research.

5. Searching under www.google.com, www.yahoo.com.au and www.bing.com.au (which are noted as the top three search engines by the National Library of Australia, http://www.nla.gov.au/pathways/pthw_global.html) using the search words ‘Lake Macquarie tourism’.

6. The Lake Macquarie 48th Summer International Children's Games is an International Olympic committee sanctioned event and thus involves significant international promotion.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Beverley Seiver

Ms Beverley Seiver is an Aboriginal Awabakal woman whose research is influenced by her experiences working in Indigenous affairs and her background in community and social development. Beverley completed a B.Soc.Sc. (Honours) degree in 2014, with a thesis examining the positioning of Aboriginal culture, heritage and peoples within the Lake Macquarie tourism profile.

Amie Matthews

Dr Amie Matthews is a lecturer in sociology and tourism studies in the School of Social Sciences and Psychology, at Western Sydney University. Amie's research concerns the impacts of tourism on travellers and those visited. She has published on backpacker and volunteer tourism, tourism and rite of passage, and tourism and the media.