ABSTRACT
The chapter explores the development of ethnic heritage tourism within Australian cities from the late-1980s. This includes what are now called ‘ethnic precincts’ but also festivals, heritage sites, and the more amorphous concept of the ‘cosmopolitan’ city. It focuses on two case studies: the 1980s–1990s promotion of Canberra as ‘Our Multicultural Capital’; and attempts from the mid-1980s onwards to sell Cabramatta as ‘Sydney’s ethnic centre’. Both these areas have been chosen because they contained ‘firsts’ in terms of ethnic tourism. Canberra appointed the first ‘Multicultural Marketing Manager’ to a Tourist Bureau in Australia; and Cabramatta was designated New South Wales’ first ‘Official Tourist Resort’. The examples demonstrate how migrants used tourism to assert the importance of multiculturalism within a widening definition of what constituted ‘Australian culture’. But they also reveal the tensions inherent in combining multiculturalism and tourism.
