| To most Chinese people, Australia is a country that seems so familiar yet so strange. The image of the Sydney Opera House, kangaroos, and koalas can be seen more than often through various media in China. In April 2008, Kevin Rudd, the current Prime Minister of Australia visited China and delivered a speech in Peking University in fluent and educated Mandarin. His speech not only impressed our top intellectuals, but also intrigued widespread online debate on the mutual understanding between Australia and China.In the past decades, the Chinese people's knowledge of Australia has remained as it was in the 1980s. Publications on Australian matters focused more on the facts that Australia is primarily a country dependent on its exports of mineral ore and pastoral farming products. Such being true, it is still worth pointing out that the Australian society is also dependent on a third supporting industry, namely, the tourism industry. Unfortunately, hardly enough attention was given to the study of Australia's tourism industry. This was especially so within the academic circle.As a master degree candidate in Australian cultural studies, the researcher believes that the examination of the tourism industry could help further the comprehension of the Australian society as a whole, since the tourism industry consists of virtually all sectors of the society. Through personal communications with Australian guests, the researcher realises that the Australian tourism industry serves more than just an economic polar for the society; its very commencement, existence, and development are all closely tied up to the society. Based on such thinking, the researcher developed the hypothesis of this research project by initially comparing two television advertisements for the Australia tourism industry. The sharp contrast between the two advertisements—the shift of focal market from the USA to the whole world—intrigued the preliminary hypothesis which is that such changes within the tourism industry were by and large responses to changes in the whole society. Further thinking led to the hypothesis that if the previous situation were true, then these transformations must have influenced inbound Chinese tourists to Australia, which in turn would influence the Chinese people's understanding of the Australian society.To test those hypotheses, the researcher designed the research project to be an empirical study with emphasis on the characteristics of the Australian tourism industry. However, as the research progressed, the researcher found it is necessary to expand the theoretical framework into interdisciplinary fields, thus resulted in this thesis a combination of theories from historical, sociological, and globalisation studies. The subject under scrutiny also extended from the tourism industry per se to the Australian society in general.As an overall structure of this thesis, the researcher adopted Erik Cohen's sociological approach. The study was divided into four major parts: the examination of the characteristics of the tourists; the relationship between tourists and locals; the structure and functionality of the tourism industry; and the consequences of tourism.In the first chapter, the purposes of study were briefly explained. The second section of this chapter defined the concepts of tourism and the tourism industry; then it introduced three major theories that apply to the cultural studies of the tourism industry, which are the visual cultural studies theory, the representation of the"Other ,"and post-tourism theory by John Urry. To serve as the foundation of following discussions, this chapter also described the methodologies used in this research—literature review, interviews, and observation.In accordance with Cohen's approach, the second chapter began with investigations on the characteristics of generic tourism behaviours. Then it narrowed the focus of the discussion down to the outbound Chinese tourists, and eventually connected the Chinese tourists with the Australian tourism industry.The researcher has modified the sequence of Cohen's approach and conducted investigations on the structure and functionality of the Australian tourism industry ahead of the discussions on tourist-local relationships. Chapter three analysed the strength and vulnerability of the Australian tourism society, and it also probed into further questions as to the transformation and continuity as depicted in current conditions of the Australian tourism industry. As the major chapter of this thesis, the discussions were conducted in reference to the hypotheses raised in the first part of the thesis. The researcher has also endeavoured to structure a balanced analysis during comparison processes. Following the above chapters, chapter four assumed the responsibility of finishing the discussions of the remaining aspects—the tourist-local relationship and the consequence of tourism. The discussions of tourist-local relationship were based on the norm of inbound Chinese tourists to Australia. The discussions of the consequence of such tourism were woven into the same process.In conclusion, this research project found that the original hypotheses were true to the de facto situation. The Australian tourism industry has indeed undergone changes that were marked by its shift from a Western focus to a global orientation. It is equally noteworthy that such changes were responses to both domestic and international changes in political, economic, and cultural spheres. Further more, this study took the point of view that Australia will see a steady increase of inbound Chinese tourists in the next decade, but this will be a direct result of economic impact rather than of improved mutual understanding. If the Australian tourism industry's promotional efforts could not succeed in building an image of cultural distinction when facing their potential Chinese customers, it will inevitably run into crisis in its long-term development. |
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