CULTURAL TOURISM

Monday, April 2, 2012

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DISCUSSION PAPER

CONTEXT:

A Response to the Main Report for Launceston Strategic Tourism Plan prepared for Launceston City Council by A. Stafford & Associates Pty Ltd February 2012 The paper has been prepared in response to Council's call for ratepayer feedback 

AUTHOR:    Ray Norman    Monday, 2 April 2012

Museums are amazing places invested with layers of cultural knowledge and cultural property. Likewise museums and art galleries have enormous and multidimensional Communities of Ownership and Interest (COI) – ratepayers in Launceston, researchers, taxpayers, donors, sponsors, et al – albeit that all too often museums' and art gallery's COI's various attachments to these places of the muse go unacknowledged. These COIs also constitute the primary audience for museums' and art galleries' programs and projects.

The report – click here to access the report – prepared for Launceston City Council by A. Stafford & Associates Pty Ltd – www.thestaffordgroup.com.au – in respect to tourism in the city/municipality/region pays scant attention to cultural tourism – in particular it makes an almost cursory acknowledgement of the Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery. 

However, in a peripheral sense the report does touch upon issues that might be included in an assessment of cultural tourism in the city/region. Nonetheless, the report does not address the issue of cultural tourism in any substantial way. 

Given the city’s/region’s history and heritage this seems to be a significant oversight or shortfall. The report does however gather together significant data relevant to cultural tourism albeit that its relevance to the phenomena seems by-and-large to have been either ignored or down played. Against the evidence that arguably the city/regions largest investment in infrastructure relevant to tourism is the Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery, all of this is somewhat puzzling. 

It is worth noting that: 

1. The estimated value of the collections the QVMAG holds is in the order of $250 million; 
2. The replacement value of the buildings the institution occupies is likely to exceed $40 million(?);
3. The QVMAG, as an operation, has an annual recurrent budget is in the order of $5 million; and consequently 
4. The lion’s share of this budget – $3 million plus – comes directly from Launceston’s ratepayers with the remainder coming from the Tasmanian State Government except for corporate and private sponsorships that generally fund the institution's acquisitions. 

It is worth noting that in Tasmania recently cultural tourism has proven to be a more than significant drawcard for the state’s tourism. Hobart’s MONA – Museum of Old and New Art – has demonstrated, and in a spectacular way, the contribution cultural tourism can make to the marketing of tourism in Tasmania. Indeed, MONA attracted an average of one thousand visitors a day for 2011 – many of whom were attracted to Hobart and the museum from interstate and overseas via ‘social networking’. By any measure – nationally or internationally – this is a very impressive tourism marketing outcome. 

It is also worth noting that Arts Tasmania has been working with Tourism Tasmania towards developing a cultural tourism policy for Tasmania. Indeed Arts Tasmania is on the cusp of releasing a report on this matter. For whatever reason, Stafford & Associates does not seem to have made the connections here that they might have been expected to do. This seems to be, in some measure, an inherent weakness in their report.

Albeit that it may well be argued that there is more to be done, Launceston, and Tasmania more generally, have clearly made a significant investment in the city/region’s cultural infrastructure and thus cultural tourism – significantly invested in the QVMAG over 120 years. Stafford & Associates overlooking all this in large part points to a couple of likely assumptions in regard to their findings. 

Firstly, it may be the case the QVMAG is not (was not?) seen as a significant tourism drawcard. Secondly, it is possible that city’s/community’s investment in the institution to date has been perceived to have NOT been directed towards, or relevant to, tourism outcomes. If either is the case, such assumptions need to be refuted, and vigorously.

FURTHER LINKS GO TO: http://tourismandculture7250.blogspot.com.au/

WHAT IS CULTURAL TOURISM?

DEFINING CULTURAL TOURISM

MARKETING CULTURAL TOURISM

CULTURAL TOURISM ATTRACTIONS

UNDERSTANDING THE CULTURAL TOURISM MARKET

CULTURAL TOURISM CHALLENGES

RECOMMENDED ACTIONS FOR THE QVMAG

Given that the QVMAG acknowledges the strategic role the institution has to play in regard to tourism in the city/region in general, and cultural tourism in particular, the institution needs to:

1.  Urgently put in place a strategic plan that acknowledges the institution’s tourism role and opportunities and that identifies specific strategies to be acted upon towards realising the institution’s tourism potential; 
2. Urgently work towards the installation of a Tasmanian Aboriginal exhibit that celebrates Tasmanian Aboriginal culture and acknowledges the layering of histories – precolonial, colonial and postcolonial – relative to Tasmania’s Aboriginal community; 
3. Initiate, and seek funding/sponsorships for, a publications program – exhibitions, books, papers, essays, etc. – that explores and interrogates the cultural dimension of Launceston’s/the Tamar region’s/Tasmania’s histories and heritage. 
4. Initiate, and seek funding/sponsorships for a program of events – lectures, conferences, seminars, symposiums, performances, etc. – that focuses upon the city’s/region’s cultural life and that is proactively inclusive.