ABSTRACT
Quotations like this one highlight the recent emergence of Sydney as the ‘queer capital’ down under. Numerous gay travel companies promote tours to Australia to coincide with Mardi Gras. Sydney has become an important destination for gay and lesbian travellers, as well as non-queer tourists. The following newspaper report from the Sydney Morning Herald compares and contrasts two separate tourist spectacles: the Chinese New Year celebrations in Hong Kong and the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade. For a married couple – Susan and Peter – the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade appear to be an exceptional tourist event:
As Susan (middle-aged British visitor) said to her husband Peter (ditto) at the start of Saturday night’s cavalcade of camp, ‘it’s good to have a bit of colour in life, isn’t it?’ . . . They were in Hong Kong for Chinese New Year in January to see 30-storey skyscrappers lit in electric hues. But it was nothing like this. Nothing like the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.
