ABSTRACT

When Creative Nation dealt with tourism, it was within the prism of a slightly naïve and nationalist version of the attractions of Australian life. Rather than merely promoting the location, however, it was also about promoting a distinctive and confident Australian culture. Rural legacies lingered, with traditional Australian touchstones such as the outback, Uluru and so on, but it was moving, cautiously, towards other registers as well – typified, for example, by the use of the indigenous rock band Yothu Yindi in international promotions. Two decades later, however, tourism policy and promotion are much more decidedly urban and cosmopolitanism. But exactly how ‘culture’ is viewed as a tourism asset increasingly rests on a very particular reading of urban and cosmopolitan culture – culture as consumption – hence the foregrounding of Melbourne laneways, hipster baristas, festivals and events, maker spaces and craft breweries. The focus on consumption spaces and activities is a long way from Creative Nation’s concern with cultural production as an engine of economic growth and exports. Like so many other areas covered in this volume, and indeed traversing a large number of them as a cross-field influence, tourism has reoriented itself around the commercial opportunities available through commodifying, rather than making, Australian culture.