Domestic demand for Indigenous tourism in Australia: understanding motivations, barriers, and implications for future development

Tourism is promoted as a development tool for Indigenous communities in many countries around the world. Governments and non-governmental organisations have been developing and supporting this strategy with the aim of improving socio-economic indicators amongst Indigenous populations. However, statistics show that domestic demand for Australian Indigenous tourism products, compared to four other types of mainstream tourism, is quite low. In order to explore why domestic visitors are less engaged in Indigenous tourism than other tourism types, this study adopts a mixed-methods case study to identify domestic visitors' motivations for, and barriers to, participating in Indigenous tourism activities. Semi-structured interviews using a photo-elicitation method were conducted with 52 domestic visitors at the Grampians National Park, Victoria, Australia. The findings suggest that there are differences in motivations for, and barriers to, participating in Indigenous tourism activities. Strategies suggested in this study include increasing the awareness of the different forms of Indigenous tourism activities through promotional material at different points, educating the visitor information centre staff in regard to the existing products offered, creating a seasonal restructure of the existing tourism products offered in the cultural centre, and leveraging the point of differentiation by highlighting the key elements of the local Indigenous culture.