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Kakadu tourism to go the indigenous way

By Lindsay Murdoch

31 July 2008 - NATASHA Nadji sat for hours at the feet of her grandfather, the legendary "Kakadu Man", as he told stories passed on through his Aboriginal ancestors over 50,000 years.

"They were amazing … I wanted to hear more and more and my grandad spoke about wanting them to be passed on to white people as well," she said.

Among them was the story of the Rainbow Serpent, a powerful creation spirit that forged passages through rocks and formed waterholes in the land that is now Kakadu National Park.

Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett and Kakadu's indigenous owners will announce today a campaign changing the way tourism is promoted and handled in the world heritage-listed park where, according to indigenous lore, the serpent's spell still lurks as it sleeps.

Six years after the death of Bill Neidjie - the Kakadu Man's real name - Natasha Nadji and her family operate boat tours on East Alligator River, one of a growing number of Aboriginal-owned tours which are the focus of the campaign to promote the park's indigenous and cultural tourism worldwide. "I'm actually quite surprised by the interest in our culture," Ms Nadji says.

Mr Garrett will speak at a billabong near the park's Nourlangie Rock this morning to launch the campaign, which aims to encourage visitors to stay longer and see more through the eyes of Aboriginal people. The Rainbow Serpent will become the park's brand identity and logo.

"This will be a new era for Kakadu," Mr Garrett told The Age.

The shift in the way Kakadu is marketed comes after concerns that the park, one of Australia's top tourist destinations, was suffering an identity crisis, with some visitors going away disappointed because they did not stay long enough to see its attractions. Kakadu comprises 20,000 square kilometres of flood plains, tropical rivers, billabongs, monsoon forests and savannah woodlands.

The campaign took three years to develop after traditional owners, the federal and Northern Territory governments and tourist companies decided to pursue what they call a "shared vision" for the park, which attracts more than 220,000 visitors a year.

It aims to tap into a market for the "experience seeker" who, research shows, wants the sort of personal connection with Aboriginal people that Kakadu offers.

Instead of a mass tourism approach, where visitors stay in the park one or two days, the campaign will push for stays of three to five days or more.

Andy Ralph, whose family runs the Kakadu Culture Camp, says the thirst for indigenous knowledge and experience is huge and growing, especially from European tourists. "They want to meet Aboriginal people in Kakadu, they want to sit down and talk with them, they want to have dinner with them …"

Source: The Age

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