Online Opportunities and Challenges for Indigenous Cultural Tourism in Australia

Authors: Sharma P.¹; Carson D.²

Source: Information Technology & Tourism, Volume 4, Number 2, 2001 , pp. 77-90(14)

Publisher: Cognizant Communication Corporation

Abstract:

Tourism is seen as an industry that has the potential to provide sustainable economic foundations for indigenous communities in Australia. This article identifies online technology as contributing to the capacity for indigenous communities to access the benefits of tourism. Indigenous communities engaged in tourism can utilize the Internet to supply the tourism product as well as deliver much needed cultural support messages around the product in both domestic and international markets. However, limited skills, costs, and physical access barriers have made it difficult for indigenous communities to effectively use online technologies to benefit from the opportunities. This article examines the context of indigenous tourism in Australia as a prelude to a discussion of the issues relating to Australian indigenous tourism going online; it also provides an overview of how the Tourism dotcom initiative has approached the task of developing capacity among indigenous cultural tourism suppliers.

Keywords: Key words: Indigenous tourism; Online tourism; Cul

Language: English

Document Type: Research article

Affiliations: 1: *CRC for Sustainable Tourism, Department of Geographical Sciences & Planning, University of Queensland, QLD 4072, Australia 2: School of Tourism & Hospitality Management, Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW 2480, Australia

Publication date: 2001-01-01

• Information Technology &Tourism is the first scientific journal dealing with the exciting relationship between information technology and tourism. Information and communication systems embedded in a global net have profound influence on the tourism and travel industry. Reservation systems, distributed multimedia systems, highly mobile working places, electronic markets, and the dominant position of tourism applications in the Internet are noticeable results of this development. And the tourism industry poses several challenges to the IT field and its methodologies.

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• In this Subject: Library Science ,  Geography ,  Business
• By this author: Sharma P. ;  Carson D.

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