Tourists crave the real 'Australian' experience

(original title - 'Territory of lost opportunities', first published in The Australian newspaper)
 
by Paul Toohey | March 08, 2008
 
VISITORS to the Northern Territory don't just want to see the Rock; they want to meet the traditional people who ascribe so much value to it.
 
Nor will they be satisfied by glimpsing a slime-submerged croc in Kakadu; they want to engage with the people who have lived alongside such creatures for thousands of years.
 
Humans give nature context, like it or not.
 
Tourists are lured to the territory by the promising drone of the didgeridoo and imagery that suggests a mystical, if not spiritual, involvement with Australia's first people awaits them. It's a con.
 
Maybe that's why desperately fascinated tourists gather around the shambolic, non-government supported Aborigines who sit outside a bookshop in Darwin mall as they make a buck - and good for them - painting on canvases spread before them. Or, as I saw the other day, taking swings at each other. It's as close as these visitors are going to get an Aboriginal experience.
 
The NT Government recently pointed to Nielsen research it commissioned that showed "91 per cent of visitors expect to meet and interact with indigenous people and 77 per cent consider this interaction an important part of their NT holiday".
 
Now the Government has released a tool kit to help develop cultural tourism. Never mind that Broome in the west and Cairns in the east were on to the possibilities of cultural tourism 15 years ago, and that the territory, despite having the greatest number of traditional people and the most unfrequented areas, is only now cottoning on. At least action is afoot, with the Government claiming it is working with 40 communities and outstations to develop tourism products.
 
But those lost years may be telling.
 
NT Tourism Minister Kon Vatskalis said tourists needed "more unique opportunities to experience cultural tours with Aboriginal guides such as viewing ancient rock art, visiting sacred sites, tasting bush tucker, listening to storytelling and watching traditional dance performances by Aboriginal people". So this is what it comes down to: bland bush tucker (which is always given Western names to aid in the digestion, such as "bush banana") and fake ceremonies.
 
Is that what tourists - whether rich sophisticated Germans and Japanese, or poor sophisticated German and Japanese backpackers - really want? What about Australians who want to see their back yard?
 
The idea of painting up Aborigines to dance for money is, in 2008, not only ridiculous but embarrassing. So is the notion of gathering people around the campfire for tedious tales of the Dreamtime.
 
The real stories are about survival.
 
People want an interaction with real people in a real country, in various levels of comfort. Central Australia has figured this out better than the Top End but, still, local Aboriginal guides are few and far between in the centre and even harder to find in the Top End, which is home to the most pristine river systems in the world. There should be eco-cabins, lodges and hideaways all over the place.
 
As it stands, the only visitors who get to see the great wild wetlands of far east Arnhem Land are rich Americans with big guns who pay $5000 for (white) guides to point out the resident bull buffalos for them to shoot, after which they take the trophy horns and skull but leave the carcass for the dingos. We should be able to do better than that.
 
Souvenir shops in Alice Springs' Todd Mall are loaded with luridly painted didgeridoos, even though central Australians never used didgeridoos, let alone blue ones. We should be able to do better than that as well.
 
An Aboriginal economy has to begin somewhere and tourism is the obvious starting place. It need not involve people wearing little red underpants or toasting witchetty grubs.
 
But yes, it will involve people wanting to take photos of the people they meet on their journey. It's called tourism. You have it or you don't. These visitors will not be interested in being asked to sign contractual agreements (as happens in the over-sensitive NT) that the photos will be used only for non-commercial purposes. All it would take is for small, rotating groups of committed Aborigines, male and female, in various places, prepared to act as guides or rangers and to spend a day or two each week driving the rubbernecks around their country, visiting special places or maybe throwing a line in a muddy river.
 
It's easy money, it's work and it involves traditional owners constantly visiting, monitoring and caring for country. Ten years ago, there was no excuse why this wasn't happening. There are fewer excuses now.
 
If Aborigines feel at all misunderstood by the world, end the misunderstanding by engaging with it. Otherwise the world may just keep flying to Cairns or Broome. Or Africa.
 
(Source: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23337486-5006790,00.html