The bigger picture

The political question of who is permitted to travel and what travelling means is older than the modern tourism industry. Pre-modern travel was undertaken by traders, soldiers, pilgrims, refugees, and the wealthy. The political project of producing tourism as an industry, where ordinary people travel for pleasure and pay others to host them, is a relatively recent political achievement.

The Antiguan-American writer Jamaica Kincaid documented in her short book A Small Place how the political conditions of contemporary tourism in formerly colonised places carry colonial political legacies. The political relationship between tourist and host, between the visiting and the visited, between the marketed image of a place and the lived political conditions of the people who live there, was a relationship shaped by colonial political histories. The argument reaches Australian tourism through the political conditions of First Nations cultural tourism, of multicultural community tourism, and of the political marketing of places that have particular political histories of dispossession.

The Maori scholar Linda Tuhiwai Smith, working in education and research methodology, has documented how the political conditions of representing Indigenous communities, including in tourism contexts, are shaped by colonial assumptions about who has authority to tell which stories. The argument reaches Australian tourism through the political conversation about First Nations cultural tourism, about traditional owner consent on tour routes, and about the political conditions of Indigenous-led tourism.

The colonial transfer

Tourism in colonial Australia inherited British political settlements about travel, leisure, and visiting. The political tradition of the gentleman's grand tour, of the seaside holiday, of the colonial visit to exotic places, was transmitted into Australia through migration, fashion, and the political project of empire.

What that political vision excluded is part of the history. First Nations travel across Country had its own political conditions, developed over millennia, that did not fit colonial categories. The political project of marketing Australian Country as a tourism destination, beginning in the late nineteenth century and accelerating through the twentieth, has consistently sat in tension with the political fact of First Nations sovereignty over that Country.

The political conditions of tourism workers in colonial Australia reflected colonial racial and class hierarchies. Hospitality, transport, and guiding work was politically structured by who was permitted to serve visitors and who was politely or impolitely excluded from the work.

The mass aviation political settlement

The post-war political settlement transformed tourism. The political achievement of paid annual leave, won by labour movement organising in most industrialised countries, produced the political conditions for mass domestic tourism. The political project of cheap aviation, accelerating after the 1960s, produced the conditions for mass international tourism.

The mass aviation settlement was a political achievement, won through specific political contests about labour, aviation regulation, and currency. The political conditions of Australian tourism reflected these settlements. The international visitor who arrived in Cairns in 1985 was the product of political decisions made in Geneva, Brussels, Washington, Tokyo, and Canberra as much as in Queensland.

The political conditions of First Nations tourism developed in this period. The political achievement of Indigenous-led tourism, organising slowly through the 1970s and 1980s and intensifying since, was a political contest about whose Country is being marketed, by whom, and with what political voice for traditional owners.

The neoliberal turn and destination marketing

From the 1980s, a different political settlement began to assert itself. The political idea that tourism should be marketed by destination management organisations operating as quasi-commercial entities, that state and federal governments should fund tourism marketing rather than directly operate hospitality and travel, and that tourism should compete in a globalised market for international visitors, was developed and rolled out through successive reforms.

The political legacy is significant. Tourism Australia, state tourism organisations, and regional tourism bodies operate as political artefacts of this turn. The political conditions of major tourism marketing campaigns reflect this settlement, and the political contests about authentic representation, about cultural sensitivity, and about marketing First Nations Country, all sit inside the political conditions established in this period.

The climate and overtourism moment

The political conversation about climate impact on Australian tourism has accelerated since the 2010s. Reef bleaching, fire risk to iconic destinations, and the climate-political reshaping of when and how Australians travel have produced political conditions that the tourism industry is absorbing continuously.

The political conversation about overtourism, particularly in inner-city Australian LGAs and in iconic regional destinations, is part of a global political contest about housing politics, resident impact, and the political question of who tourism is for. The political settlement on short-term rental, on tourism caps, on visitor levies, is being negotiated city by city.

The present moment

Climate-political reshaping, migrant worker conditions, and First Nations cultural tourism politics are reshaping tourism now.

The climate-political reshaping of destinations reaches operators through physical impacts, insurance pricing, and emerging sustainability disclosure. International standards on emissions and sustainability marketing reach Australia primarily through investor pressure and corporate procurement before they reach domestic regulation. 

The political contest about migrant worker conditions, particularly working holiday visa workers, has been intensifying through federal regulation. Operators using labour-hire arrangements without strong direct oversight are politically exposed.

The political conversation about First Nations cultural tourism, accelerating since the 2010s, continues to reshape practice. The political pressure for traditional owner consent on tour routes, for Indigenous-led work, and for genuine partnership rather than appropriation is sustained.