Market Opportunity Plus Aspirations and Capacity Should Lead to Success

Any cursory analysis of the potential for Indigenous tourism in Australia must conclude that the opportunities are great, as Australia’s Indigenous culture is an obvious point of difference and attraction in an increasingly homogenised tourism world. Yet remote Australia’s Indigenous tourism industry has not realised its potential and does not look like doing so in the foreseeable future. This paper examines why that is so. It argues that conventional explanations, including a lack of Indigenous business capacity and aspiration, whilst correct, are superficial. This means that conventional solutions to the problems associated with the Indigenous tourism industry, even though necessary, are insufficient to enable it to succeed. To develop endogenously, the Indigenous tourism industry needs to incorporate within its organisation Indigenous values and modes of being in the world. That requires recognition of and adaptation to cultural mores and behaviours that are hidden below outsiders’ perceptions of Indigenous material culture, art and performance. The paper concludes with some tentative recommendations about reconciling these paradoxes that inhibit the full development of Australia’s Indigenous tourism possibilities.