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| home | news lFirst conference for indigenous tourism10 February 2004 - The first-ever Australian Indigenous Tourism Conference is underway this week in Fremantle. The 'Better Business, Better Country' conference will aim to drive indigenous tourism and create opportunities to showcase and promote authentic indigenous tourism products. "The conference will provide an opportunity for indigenous tourism operators, potential operators and mainstream businesses to get together to develop partnerships," WA Tourism Minister Bob Kucera said. Mr Kucera said it was important for the tourism industry to create momentum in specialist areas, such as indigenous tourism. "Research shows that 80 percent of tourists coming to Australia are looking for a unique cultural experience. However, only 20 percent feel they have had that experience by the time they leave," he said. "When you think about it, indigenous culture is one of the truly unique and nation-specific assets we have, so there is huge potential to develop authentic indigenous tourism products and that potential provides us with one of the most exciting challenges in the industry." The conference, being held at the Esplanade Hotel Fremantle until tomorrow, will include guest speakers Ernie Dingo from the Seven Network's 'The Great Outdoors', Senator Aden Ridgeway and Mandawuy Yunupingu from Yothu Yindi. - Travelpress travel news. Source:Australian Tourist Commission
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Source: Western Australian Tourism Commission
Australian Indigenous Tourism Conference 2004 – WA
10 February, 2004 - Despite that introduction, I am here today not with my musician’s hat on, but as Deputy Chairman of the Yothu Yindi Foundation, which I will tell you a bit about in a minute, and I want to talk today about two things specifically – the Garma Festival, which the Foundation puts on – probably Australia’s biggest annual indigenous cultural event, held each year, in August, in north-east Arnhem Land, and, very closely connected to that, the issue of the need for authenticity and cultural integrity in indigenous tourism projects, and specifically, at festivals – the need for it culturally and morally, but also the need, certainly in our case for it commercially, if we are to establish festivals such as Garma and related activities as serious and sustainable indigenous tourism destinations.
First, Garma.
(video)
Garma is the flagship, if you like, of the Yothu Yindi Foundation, which I started in 1990, with other Yolngu community leaders and leaders of five clan groups in northeast Arnhem Land.
It is a charitable institution, with tax exemption and gift deductibility status. One of its key objectives is to help build the development, teaching and the enterprise potential of Yolngu cultural life.
We are working to further economic, employment and training opportunities for Yolngu, And also, importantly, to encourage the practice, preservation and maintenance of traditional culture.
And we want to further the sharing of knowledge and culture, especially between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians, fostering, through that, greater understanding between them.
So we started Garma five years ago to do all that :
It is through all that art, song, dance and ceremony that we sustain our culture.
So Garma features a lot of culture, a lot of art, a lot of performance, in a bush setting, and with a lot of fun.
It is, as a journalist in “The Australian” once described it, a festival with a deeper purpose.
And it has grown and grown in all aspects – including the cost !
Last year, we had 1500 people there – half of them Yolngu and other indigenous Australians, and half of them non-indigenous Australians and international visitors, nearly all there to participate in the workshops, the classes, the forums, the Ceremonies.
It is a pretty unique event, with a lot of exclusivity about it.
And with the current level of infrastructure at the site , even with us bringing in what we can , helped by Alcan , a major sponsor , and with our other resource and financial constraints , we can’t really get any more people on the site which , by the way, is on Aboriginal land , (so visitors need a permit to enter the land).
To help achieve those aims I have spelled out above , we have a big range of activities and features. This year, at Garma 2004, we will have:
the Garma Cultural Studies Forum – the theme is Indigenous Livelihoods (which include tourism) – and a Leadership Forum
You can see that the roots of the Garma Festival, now a high-profile, in-demand event, are in culture, and furthering opportunities for Yolngu. They are not in tourism. But it is a unique experience, a unique gathering.
And many visitors, as Steve Leibmann said while doing his live broadcasts for the Today Show from there last year, feel it is a “privilege” to be at Garma.
Because it is real. Authentic.
It would all be happening anyway, even if we didn’t have any tourism visitors. And that gives those visitors a real sense of being involved, being part of and experiencing a rare privilege, seeing and learning and sharing this knowledge and culture.
As one of our local Land management rangers, also a guide, said at Garma 2002:
‘We’ve got 40,000 years experience doing all this, visitors can learn a fair bit here”.
That’s a fair bit of corporate knowledge, as businessmen call it.
Last year, we ran a tourism pilot project, with World Expeditions, in which we had about 35 people come in and experience the four days of Garma, and, effectively, join the Garma team.
It was a major success. That success, and the major national TV coverage of Garma last year, brought on a lot of demand this year from tourists wanting to come. So we started discussing the wisdom, or need, for an expanded tourism attendance at the Festival – and our case has, I think, implications for other festivals.
We did not want to lose the cultural essence, integrity and authenticity – and prime purpose - of the Festival Would we do that by having lots more tourists ? Would we have to change the festival ?
And would we then lose what the tourists had come to experience – a unique, authentic insight and involvement in indigenous culture ?
That would be similar to wrecking something like the Barrier Reef by too much tourism and bad practices, and in doing that wrecking the product….and the tourism industry.
Of course, we do need to have Garma paying its way, raising enough funds to put itself on and achieve our aims and the tourism element helps that.
Well, the answer to those questions is: we reckon we can have a lot more tourists, and we can keep the cultural integrity and authenticity of a Festival like Garma intact when you do have a lot more tourists.
In fact, we reckon the two are, in our case at least, inter-dependent.
Such an event – a tourism project - needs the cultural integrity, the authenticity, the real thing, the true insight.
It is a key selling point, a key difference between us and a lot of other stuff going on.
And this goes for many indigenous tourism projects, including festivals with indigenous elements.
For us, it is not just the special site, and circumstances, but what happens there and the way we do it.
So you can afford to have cultural integrity and authenticity in the tourism product you are offering – in fact, in our case, we can’t afford not to !
And if it is to be true indigenous tourism, then we have to maintain the unique situation and features we have, and the cultural integrity.
For Festivals to play a proper role in indigenous tourism, the indigenous element of them ( for us, the whole thing) must have cultural integrity and provide a real, authentic, rare experience for the tourist. That way it serves all purposes.
I will let you into a secret – we were calling the pilot project an eco-tourism project. But not any more, Sure, it has a major ecological element, but it has an indigenous core. And if it were to lose that, calling it “indigenous tourism” would be like calling something “ecotourism” even though you didn’t even go outside !
So we are looking, this year, at having perhaps about 100 tourists coming in, after going through the necessary registration and permit processes with us. (www.garma.telstra.com). And we are looking at other ways of allowing visitors to come up there, and for us to share the knowledge and culture with them, giving them a rare experience and helping us achieve our aims. We have already had eight Yolngu go through a formal tour guide training program to help this along, and help them along, of course. They are some of the 70 Yolngu who work at Garma.
We did an economic and social impact study after Garma 2003, showing the festival is worth millions to the NT economy, And with the support of the Northern Territory Government, we have formally begun to join, in timing and a marketing sense, Garma, and the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award, and the Darwin Festival, every August (Garma is August 6-9 this year), to maximise the tourism potential, particularly with inter-state and international visitors.
Garma is so important to the Territory now, we are working with the Government to maximise its support for us.
So now you know what Garma is, what it is for, and why we go out each year and frantically search for the assistance of corporate and government partners to allow us to put Garma on and, if we get the infrastructure, even expand it.
But not too much !
And not change it .
It has to be a financial success, so we can achieve those aims I talked about before. And tourism – real indigenous tourism at the Festival – is part of that.
But to do that it also has to be the real thing.
It has real purpose - and it is real indigenous tourism !
Thank you.
Source: Western Australian Tourism Commission
16 February 2004 - This week saw the first ever Australian Indigenous Tourism Conference held in Perth, in which over 10 Accor General Managers attended as part of the Accor Indigenous Employment Program. During the conference the General Managers from the Mercure Inn hotels discussed new ways to incorporate indigenous tourism into their operations in locations such as Karratha, Kalgoorlie, Broome and Port Headland. Throughout the conference the attendees also expanded their knowledge and understanding of indigenous culture.
Speaking prior to the opening, Tourism Minister, Bob Kucera, said the conference "Better Business, Better Country" is all about driving indigenous tourism in Australia and creating opportunities to showcase and promote authentic indigenous tourism products. The conference will provide a unique opportunity for indigenous tourism operators, potential operators and mainstream businesses to get together to develop partnerships," Mr Kucera said.
Accor embarked upon the its Indigenous Employment Program in January 2001 with a commitment to employ 100 indigenous people. This first target was achieved over an 18-month period and Accor has now embarked upon a second phase, with a target of employing an additional 135 indigenous people over a period of 2 years.
Accor’s Indigenous Employment Program involves employing Indigenous persons on a permanent full-time, part-time or casual basis in the hospitality industry and providing relevant training. As a Registered Training Organisation, Accor also offers the opportunity for eligible employees to complete a Certificate Two in Hospitality Operations.
A long-term equal opportunity employer, Accor aims to redress the under-representation of indigenous Australians in the tourism industry and provide Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders with meaningful employment and the social and economic benefits this brings.
"This program is a firm commitment to creating long-term, sustainable employment for indigenous Australians," said Mr Baffsky, Chairman of Accor Asia Pacific and who is a board member of the Indigenous Land Corporation. "The aim is to provide Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders with greater representation in the industry to ensure their economic independence."
As Australia's largest hotel group, Accor provides unrivalled opportunities to build a career in the hospitality industry and its network offers opportunities where large Aboriginal communities reside including in north-west Western Australia, far north Queensland and the Northern Territory, as well as in urban and regional areas.
“It is our ambition to make indigenous success stories standard practice across all our hotels so we can set an example for other industries to follow,” Mr Baffsky said.
Source: ASIA Travel Tips.com
The Wheatbelt region was well represented when the Western Australian Indigenous Tourism Operators Committee (WAITOC) hosted the inaugural Australian Indigenous Tourism Conference at Fremantle's Esplanade Hotel from 8 - 10 February, 2004.
Conference delegates from the region included Wheatbelt Area Consultative Committee Indigenous Employment Project Officer Joanne Conyers, the Wheatbelt Development Commission's Indigenous Economic Development Officer Ashley Talbot, Wayne Turvey from Bibdjool Craftwood (a KEEDAC enterprise), Grant and Anne Riley from Wuddi Cultural Tours (a KEEDAC enterprise) and Peter van den Berg representing the Wheatbelt Aboriginal Corporation enterprise, Mogumber Heritage Tours.
Over 300 people from across the nation attended the conference, which carried the theme 'Better Business - Better Country'.
Activities commenced with a welcome function at the WA Maritime Museum Shipwreck Galleries on Sunday. Then after a spectacular Welcome To Country on Monday, the conference commenced with keynote addresses by Senator Aden Ridgeway who spoke on the conference theme 'Better Business - Better Country' and Ernie Dingo who presented his address on 'Tourism And The Media'.
Monday's programme included topics such as tourism as a business, getting ready for business, the cultural experience, training and accreditation, building partnerships and joint ventures as well as pathways to tourism.
After a gala dinner which featured an array of cultural performances, the programme recommenced on Tuesday with keynote speaker Mandawuy Yunupingu of Yothu Yindi who spoke about festivals, Indigenous tourism and the Garma Festival. Keynote speaker Joseph Elu presented a session entitled Tourism - A Personal Perspective.
Delegates were then invited to attend a workshop on Funding and Starting Your Business or Marketing Your Business.
Afternoon sessions included information on the Western Australian Indigenous Tourism Operators Committee, Cultural Protocols and Indigenous Ownership and Joint Management of Conservation Lands in Western Australia.
The final session of the conference was a discussion on Bush Tucker and Tourism by Indigenous chef Mark Olive, known as the 'Black Olive'. Delegates were encouraged to taste the bush tucker ingredients, which Mark then incorporated into a variety of dishes that he prepared and served at the poolside barbecue farewell function.
WAITOC Chairman, John Hayden, said the Conference had more than exceeded expectations.
"Over 300 delegates from across the nation attended the Conference, providing great networking opportunities for mainstream and Indigenous Tourism operators to get together and discuss the issues and needs impacting on Indigenous tourism in Australia, and the potential to develop authentic Indigenous product.
Richard Muirhead, Chief Executive Officer, Western Australian Tourism Commission (WATC) pledged his support for another conference next year.
"Due to the huge success of this year's conference the WATC will provide WAITOC with similar support to ensure it can hold a conference of this nature again next year," he said.
"There is no doubt that when word gets around about how successful the Conference has been, there will be even more delegates next year to speed the development of sustainable Indigenous Tourism product."
Mr Muirhead said that it was a magnificent week for tourism in Western Australia with the Australian Cultural Tourism Conference and Australian Tourism Awards also being held in Perth.
The Conference was hosted by the Western Australian Indigenous Tourism Operators Committee and was supported by the Western Australian Tourism Commission, ATSIC, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Services, Department of Local Government and Regional Development, Indigenous Land Corporation, Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources, Department of the Environment and Heritage, the Department of Conservation and Land Management, Yirra Kurl, Rio Tinto, LotteryWest, AIB Insurance, Qantas and Perth Convention Centre.
If you are interested in obtaining a copy of the conference papers, please contact Joanne Conyers at the Wheatbelt ACC on (08) 9641 1755 or Ashley Talbot at the Wheatbelt Development Commission on (08) 9881 5888.
Source:Wheatbelt Area Consultative Committee
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