Heritage Tourism and Indigenous Tourism in Australia

Heritage Tourism and Indigenous Tourism in Australia

Culture tourism is attracting more and more interests and concerns in the world. Many researchers have different opinions about the definition of culture tourism. Australia, being a cultural state, develops its cultural development rapidly by heritage and indigenous culture. Therefore, this essay is aim to took Australia as the research object to discover the importance of culture tourism to the development of local economy, as well as the importance of improving the living standard of local people. Meanwhile, the essay analyzed the advantages and disadvantages of both heritage and indigenous tourism. However, this essay focus more on the impacts of indigenous tourism, which are economic, social and environment impacts respectively. At the end, some suggestions were made.

Tourism is one of the fastest growing industries around the world (Hunter 2002). It has grown rapidly in many countries over the past few decades (Hunter 2002). Tourism includes varied types which mainly include mass tourism, cultural tourism and ecotourism (Smith & Robinson 2006). While cultural tourism is attracting more and more interests and concerns in the world (Foo & Rossetto 1998), because it not only plays a vital role in driving the economic development but strengthens and supports regional culture as well (Smith 2003). Australia is one of the cultural countries in the world who offers cultural destinations (Foo & Rossetto 1998). In Australia, cultural tourism has already played an important role for its tourism industry since 1991 (Brokensha & Guldberg 1992). Jenkins (1991) stated the success of tourism in Australia was dependent on the development of cultural tourism.

Cultural tourism can be defined by different points of view and different periods (Stebbins 1997). Past definitions of cultural tourism have emphasized too much on arts and heritage tourism, such as visiting theatres, galleries and museums (Smith 2003). In 1976, cultural tourism meant a form of tourism for...

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