Indigenous Australia and tourism education: an exploratory analysis of Indigenous cultural content in undergraduate tourism curricula

Indigenous tourism as a discourse, a research area, and a legitimate business sector has increased markedly in the past 20 years in Australia. The establishment of Indigenous Tourism Australia is testament to the growth in awareness ofthe area as both culturally and socially significant, and having substantial business potential. Whilst research has been conducted in a number of areas including authenticity and representation, there is a lack of research on the education of Indigenous tourism at the undergraduate level. This paper reports on the results of an online survey designed for CAUTHE Chapter Member universities. The survey was designed to elicit responses used to gauge firstly the presence (or absence) of Indigenous cultural content in the curricula, and secondly the scale and source(s) of such content. Using exploratory data analysis, the results of the survey are discussed in the context of postcolonial issues in Australian tourism, and the role of narrative in both Indigenous tourism and education in Australian universities. As an exploratory study, the paper identifies an encouraging number of institutions that currently include Indigenous cultural content in tourism curricula, and that a number of areas of potential further research emerge, including expanding the current study, and conducting comparative analyses with other countries