A golden connection : Exploring the challenge of developing heritage interpretation strategies for a tourism precinct on the central Victorian goldfields
- Authors: Reeves, Keir , Laing, Jennifer
- Date: 2009
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: Proceedings of the 2nd Asian Academy for Heritage Management Conference - Urban Heritage and Tourism: Challenges and Opportunities p. 383-391
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Exploring issues of authenticity with respect to the development of the Bendigo Chinese Heritage Precinct
- Authors: Laing, Jennifer , Reeves, Keir
- Date: 2009
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: Proceedings of the 2nd Asian Academy for Heritage Management Conference - Urban Heritage and Tourism: Challenges and Opportunities p. 189-197
- Full Text: false
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Niche strategies for small regional cities : A case study of the Bendigo Chinese heritage precinct plan
- Authors: Wheeler, Fiona , Reeves, Keir , Laing, Jennifer , Frost, Warwick
- Date: 2009
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Tourism Recreation Research Vol. 34, no. 3 (2009), p. 295-306
- Full Text: false
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- Description: Much of the focus of destination planning research to date has been on major cities, often with populations of one million or more. There is however a growing emphasis on planning for the sustainable development of cities outside the larger metropolitan hubs, with a view to attracting tourists and building liveable communities. The challenge for these regional places is to reinvent themselves and create new destination images, while maintaining a high quality of life for residents. The case study of Bendigo (an inland regional city in central Victoria, Australia, with a population of nearly 100,000) illustrates some of the issues that these destinations need to grapple with in connection with tourism planning. The discovery of a Chinese kiln dating back to the gold rushes of the 19th century became a catalyst for the local government council to develop a marketing and interpretation plan for a Chinese Heritage Precinct, encompassing various heritage assets with a Chinese association. This case study examines both the process and outcomes of this strategic plan. The article highlights the need for planning processes that emphasize the importance of engaging with a diverse group of stakeholders, including government, community organizations and private interests, to gain their input into and support of the process. It also explores the benefits of using an external research team to assist the destination with gaining a deeper understanding of its tourism potential, including key markets and prioritization of limited resources for tourism development.
Villages, vineyards, and Chinese dragons : Constructing the heritage of ethnic diasporas
- Authors: Frost, Warwick , Reeves, Keir , Laing, Jennifer , Wheeler, Fiona
- Date: 2009
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Tourism, Culture and Communication Vol. 9, no. 1-2 (2009), p. 107-114
- Full Text: false
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Coffee culture, heritage and destination image : Melbourne and the Italian model
- Authors: Frost, Warwick , Laing, Jennifer , Wheeler, Fiona , Reeves, Keir
- Date: 2010
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Coffee Culture, Destinations and Tourism p. 99-110
- Full Text: false
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Chinese mining heritage and tourism in the goldfields of the Pacific Rim
- Authors: Reeves, Keir , Wheeler, Fiona , Laing, Jennifer , Frost, Warwick
- Date: 2011
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Mining heritage and tourism p. 23-33
- Full Text: false
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A golden connection: Exploring the challenges of developing interpretation strategies for a Chinese heritage precinct on the central Victorian goldfields
- Authors: Frost, Warwick , Laing, Jennifer , Reeves, Keir , Wheeler, Fiona
- Date: 2012
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Historic Environment Vol. 24, no. 1 (2012), p. 35-40
- Full Text: false
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- Description: This article introduces and evaluates heritage tourism interpretation strategies for depicting the Chinese-Australian gold seeking experience across an urban tourism landscape in central Victoria, Australia. The city of Bendigo has its origins in the nineteenth century goldrushes and contains a variety of heritage sites, most notably those connected with the Chinese migration to the region in search of gold. These sites, including a temple, museum, cemetery, and kiln site, form arguably one of the most complete collections of Chinese goldrush heritage assets still in existence across the globe and have the potential to be marketed to visitors as a Chinese heritage precinct. They provide a direct familial and cultural nexus between southern China and Australia, yet also highlight a complex historical encounter that requires development of visitor interpretation to bring the stories to life and provide meaning and tourist appeal. This article, using a cultural landscape model, will evaluate the way in which key historical assets can be understood as heritage tourism attractions in the present day and the role of interpretation in that process, particularly focusing on the use of podcasts and promotional media films as interpretive tools. It will also consider how thematic interpretation, based on and acknowledging contested narratives, may add to the authenticity of the precinct for visitors and complement the built heritage. The findings suggest that while some of the Chinese heritage sites in Bendigo are successful tourism ventures or have strong tourist potential, overall the tourist experience is fragmented and would benefit from more integrated interpretation strategies that link the various sites across the precinct and the region.
Tourism and traditional culture: Land diving in Vanuatu
- Authors: Cheer, Joseph , Reeves, Keir , Laing, Jennifer
- Date: 2013
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Annals of Tourism Research Vol. 43 , no. October (2013), p. 435-455
- Full Text: false
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- Description: The land diving ritual or naghol of South Pentecost Vanuatu is living proof of how tourism heightens community tensions when traditional culture is commercialised. Kastom, an overarching framework under which traditional culture is defined, is predicated on an agenda of reinforcing tradition. However, tourism imposes transformation and responds to contemporary livelihood priorities of traditional peoples. The increasing precariousness of customary livelihoods and questions over its present-day relevance has made inimitable aspects of traditional culture increasingly marketable. Reconciling the nature of naghol commercialisation and overcoming the constraints of traditional patriarchal authorities (“big-men”) and an entrenched tourism industry network is critical if widespread benefit and lasting legacies for the “grassroots” are to be realised.
Assessing the experiential value of heritage assets: a case study of a Chinese heritage precinct, Bendigo, Australia.
- Authors: Laing, Jennifer , Wheeler, Fiona , Reeves, Keir , Frost, Warwick
- Date: 2014
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Tourism Management Vol. 40, no. February (2014), p. 180-192
- Full Text: false
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- Description: Destination managers often wish to utilise heritage assets to create memorable visitor experiences, yet there is a paucity of research aimed at understanding how these experiences might be perceived and valued for tourism purposes. This article uses a cultural tourism potential audit tool to evaluate the experiential value of a collection of Chinese heritage assets in the regional city of Bendigo, Australia. The tool was expanded to include analysis of the type of experience, categorising them as either peak or supporting. Findings suggest that some of the heritage assets had high or moderate experiential value, with a few forming the basis of peak tourist experiences. Other heritage assets, whilst high in experiential value, are best conceptualised as supporting experiences. Through the aegis of a heritage precinct, both types of experience may collectively attract tourists, provided they are integrated with a meaningful and appealing narrative.
Debunking Pacific utopias : Chief Roi Mata's domain and the re-imagining of people and place in Vanuatu
- Authors: Cheer, Joseph , Reeves, Keir , Laing, Jennifer
- Date: 2015
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Tourism in Pacific Islands : Current issues and future challenges Chapter 5 p. 85-100
- Full Text: false
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- Description: The view of Pacific island countries (PICs) as paradise has persisted since the arrival of Europeans over two centuries ago (Daws, 1980; Connell, 2003). Juxtaposed against utopian ideals is the reality that island countries in the region labour under a multiplicity of serious threats including climate change, economic vulnerability, political upheaval and persistent underdevelopment. Yet the paradise narrative endures in the imaginings of people and place, most notably through tourism destination marketing that constructs and manipulates place image. Associated with this has been the attendant fetishising of islanders as stereotypical noble or ignoble savages (Campbell, 1980; Fry, 1996), or their infantilisation as congenial, subaltern hosts, reinforcing notions of Pacific island communities as a latter-day Shangri-La in the Pacific (Douglas, 1997). In stark contrast, PIC prehistory suggests that islanders had enormous resilience, ingenuity, fierce warrior cultures and a reputation as seafarers of enormous competence and sophistication - attributes far removed from the docile and indigent exemplifications of recent times.