Alliance of cultural Tourism and the Arts & Crafts
Robert Jadin
ABSTRACT
Reaching an increasingly diverse and sophisticated tourist population with an
effective cultural message, realistically delivered, for those Queensland regions
not advantaged by unique natural structures poses a real challenge. Although
today cultural references are blurred due to rampant standardisation,
globalisation and mass production, there is a growing desire by the tourist public
to return to our origins, traditional know how and singularity which are values
precisely concentrated in the arts and crafts professions. It is essential for those
regions to define and rekindle a cultural uniqueness through their traditional skills
thereby creating substantive opportunities for a sustainable future.
This session draws parallels between regional France (2003 Senate Report
“Tourism and the Arts and Crafts Professions”, a discussion paper) and regional
Queensland underlining the rich possibilities existing between cultural tourism
and the arts. It also examines those factors likely to accelerate or impede the
development of this concept by focussing on the successful contemporary
examples of such relationships in regional France which argues that:
1. This recognition influences cultural heritage priorities in different rural
communities.
2. The emphasis must be on human activities which encourage, maintain
or revive artisanal and technical skills from the local regions.
3. A recognition that cultural tourism allied with the art and craft
professions, by emphasising the uniqueness of the cultural object
through quality, authenticity and integrity, can offer regional/rural
communities not just mere survival but a good quality of life as a
cultural and economically sustainable alternative.