An Historical Geography of Tourism in Victoria, Australia

Ian Clark

• Publisher: De Gruyter Open Poland
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9783110374230
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Geography
• Index: Geography

A Historical Geography of Tourism in Victoria, Australia – Case studies is concerned with the emergence of tourism in colonial Victoria, Australia. It explores a fundamental set of questions: how does a tourist site come in to being? How does a tourist gaze emerge in a 'settler society'? How does an 'era of discovery' segue into 'tourism'? And, how was the tourist map of Victoria created by settler colonists? Through the application of the classical models of MacCannell, Butler, and Gunn to construct the history of tourism at eight case studies, this work shows that Victoria's tourism landscape is dynamic and constantly changing. There are many other significant natural and cultural attractions in Victoria and much more research needs to be undertaken to understand more fully the evolution of Victoria's tourism landscape.

1 Introduction: Nascent Tourism in Victoria, Australia – Insights Into the Evolution of Its Tourism Landscape by Ian D. Clark

This work is concerned with the emergence of tourism in colonial Victoria, Australia, and is part of ongoing research into understanding Victoria’s ‘tourism era of discovery’ (Towner, 1996: 140). It is concerned with the processes of ‘opening up’ new attractions and its focus is the discovery state of the development of tourism or what Young (1983) has termed ‘pretourism’. Victoria’s tourism era of discovery, here defined as ‘nascent tourism’ or ‘pretourism’, is a period that has generally been neglected in tourism histories in Australia, notwithstanding the recent works of Bonyhady (2000), Horne (2005), and Inglis (2007). Nascent tourism, defined as the embryonic or emergent phase in which natural attractions are coming into being as the subject of tourist visitation, will be contextualized in the study of eight tourism sites that will be the primary focus of this work.

Travellers’ accounts and other contemporary sources will be used to provide us with insights into Victoria’s nascent tourism – through them; we should be able to see the various places that were emerging as tourist sites in the colonial space. The sources are interrogated as journals or narratives that offer a biography of the journey in ways similar to Carter’s (1988) and Ryan’s (1996) interrogations of the journals of Australian explorers. These accounts enable observations of tourism and travel phenomena to be contrasted and allow geographical and temporal controls to be applied. Accounts from the 1830s and 1840s, for example, capture the nascent state of hospitality and travel as it was centred around squatting stations; the 1850s and 1860s show the evolution of an accommodation industry away from Melbourne and the improvement of transport infrastructure contrasted with the chaos caused by the gold rushes and the emergence of fledgling townships such as Ararat and Ballarat.

1.1 Understanding the Colonial Settler Gaze

To understand the colonial settler gaze in Victoria, it is necessary to understand the conventions or tropes that mediated it. The cultural milieu of the various travellers needs to be contextualized, especially the prevailing paradigms or conventions of seeing, particularly the ‘cult of the Sublime’, the ‘cult of the Gothic’ (Ousby, 2002), the picturesque and the panoramic (Ryan, 1996). Renderings of the new world landscape in terms of old world paradigms, or the notion of pictorial colonization, should emerge in the various travel accounts. Furthermore, the role of settlers in mediating tourism, something I dubbed ‘nascent private tourism’ will be scrutinized – especially the scenic attractions and other places of interest that settlers, as hosts, showed their guests. In these settings, the settlers were themselves discoverers and explorers.

Henry Brown’s (1862: 35) experience upon disembarking in Melbourne encapsulates the ‘shock of the new’ that confronted many travellers: ‘I can truly say that I left the ship with a sigh of regret. It may be that the strangeness of all around made me cling instinctively to something that had been in England, and to which I was accustomed, but I have since learnt that there are few who leave a vessel, where they have been comfortable, without similar feelings’. Richard Howitt (1845: 168) also discussed the problems emigrants faced in new colonies, something he described as ‘homereturn-anxiety’, where emigrants are personally ‘abroad, but mentally at home; living, moving, and having their existence amongst friends and kindred’. Kinahan Cornwallis (1859: 33f) confirmed that first impressions of Australia were often incorrect: ‘The beauties of Australia have been frequently painted in the brightest and most inviting of hues, and I had read those pleasant book pictures before my embarkation from England; but instead of the beautiful, I had as yet only experienced the wretched, and on this, my first night in Australia … After experience however proved to me that Australia abounded less in shadow than in sunshine, and that my first experiences of the country were the worst’. Richard Twopeny (1870: 1) counselled his readers that ‘In one sense the visitor is disappointed with his first day in an Australian city. The novelties and differences from the Old Country do not strike him nearly so much as the resemblances. It is only as he gets to know the place better that he begins to notice the differences. The first prevailing impression is that a slice of Liverpool has been bodily transplanted to the Antipodes, that you must have landed in England again by mistake, and it is only by degrees that you begin to see that the resemblance is more superficial than real’.

Several travellers considered Victoria to be very English. Frenchman, Ludovic Marquis de Beauvoir (1870: 19, 30), for example, was struck by the Englishness of Victoria and although he believed it was ‘a good thing to arrive at a place without any preconceived notions or prejudices, to wait for and seize upon first impressions, though very likely riper experience may change one’s opinion’, ‘since I have landed it has struck me that the local tone of the country consists precisely in being no local tone at all, and that the colony, contrary to custom, resembles the mother country in a very unusual manner’. Samuel Smiles (1880: 179) who spent 18 months working as an accountant at Majorca, near Maryborough, during 1868-9, considered life in Victoria was very much like life in England. ‘There are the same people, the same callings, the same pleasures and pursuits … Indeed, Victoria is only another England, with a difference, at the Antipodes. The character, the habits of life, and tone of thought of the people, are essentially English’. Charles Carter (1870: 188) was struck with the English appearance of the country on both sides of the railway, at Malmesbury [sic], Kyneton, Woodend, all about Mount Macedon’, and Mossman and Banister (1853: 62) considered the ‘open forest-lands’ of Victoria ‘have very much the appearance of Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens’.

But Clara Aspinall (1862: 162) did not share their opinion and considered that Australian scenery ‘cannot certainly bear comparison with British scenery; at the same time, I must add that I have seen some very pretty spots, and some very fine views in Australia; but whenever this happened to me, my first exclamation always was, “How very lovely! How very English!” Generally speaking, there is a monotony in the scenery of Australia which is wearisome to the eye. … There is one want in Australia, which must always be felt in a new country by the traveler who is in search of the picturesque: namely, the want of scenes, ruins, or edifices hallowed by a sense of antiquity’. Robert Henderson (1911), an evangelist in Australia, concurred with Aspinall: ‘Face to face with a new country and new conditions, I soon saw that, with the exception of a few centres of population and scattered villages, a mere handful of people were in possession of a vast Island-Continent, consisting of great flock-masters and their shepherds, of farmers and gold-diggers, who had taken over the hunting grounds of the Aborigines, and were driving them into the interior and decimating them. In vain you looked for venerable cathedrals, baronial halls, old castles, famous battlefields, Druidical remains, or ancient history. Everything was new, and in the interior, wild and primitive. The only thing that could boast of antiquity was the black man, the native of the soil’ (Henderson, 1911: 149). However, Christopher Hodgson (1846: 174) whose interests were botanical and geological, did not share Aspinall’s or Henderson’s opinions, and considered that ‘Australia to the geologist is a truly interesting and wonderful country; unfolding new mysteries every day, and leaving simple man to revel in the midst of wonder, uncertainty and amazement’.

To understand the history of tourism visitation and the evolution of tourism attractions, this study uses perspectives developed by MacCannell (1976), Butler (1980), and Gunn (1994). MacCannell’s (1976) research into the development of secular attractions through five stages – sight sacralization or naming, framing and elevation, enshrinement, duplication, and social reproduction – will be tested to see if it satisfactorily accounts for the development of the eight attractions that are the focus of this study. Butler’s (1980) tourism area life-cycle model may explain any subsequent stagnation and decline of the attractions. Finally, Gunn’s (1994) spatial model of attractions should be able to add a spatial dimension to understanding the history of recreation planning at each attraction in terms of the three zones (nucleus, inviolate belt, and zone of closure) of visitor interaction outlined in his model.

MacCannell’s model has been applied to specific studies of particular tourism sites, including Jacobsen’s (1997) study of a cape in Norway; Clark’s (2002b) preliminary study of Lal Lal Falls in Victoria, Australia, Slade’s (2003) investigation of Gallipoli, Turkey, and more recently Forristal, Marsh, and Lehto’s (2011) analysis of Historic Prophetstown in Battle Ground, Indiana, in the United States. Forristal et al (2011: 574) note that the ‘use of MacCannell’s site sacralisation model is not a quantitative exercise, but rather a subjective and qualitative one. There is no specific or agreedupon operationalization of the model. Indeed, the beauty and strength of the model lies in its flexible application to a wide range of sites and situations’.

1.2 First Phase: Sight Sacralization and Naming

MacCannell (1976) has identified the first phase in the development of attractions as ‘sight sacralization’ or ‘naming’ when the sight or site is given a name. A fundamental step in its demarcation as a place of interest is its naming. In the case of Gunn’s (1994) spatial model of attractions, the site is the nucleus of the attraction, the principal focus of visitor interest. This sacralization stage corresponds with Butler’s (1980) ‘exploration’ stage in which tourism as such is nascent and visitor numbers are dispersed and insignificant, a stage best described as ‘pre-tourism’.

1.3 Second Phase: Framing and Elevation

The second phase identified by MacCannell (1976) in the evolution of attractions is ‘framing and elevation’ which he argued results from an increase in visitation, when demand requires some form of management intervention, whereby the sight is displayed more prominently and framed off. MacCannell’s framing and elevation phase corresponds with Gunn’s (1994) ‘inviolate belt’ zone in his spatial model. The inviolate belt represents the essential setting of the nucleus, it is the area immediately surrounding it, and serves as the psychological setting for introducing the visitor to the attraction. This period also correlates with Butler’s ‘involvement’ stage, which is characterised by an increase in tourist visitation and the emergence of an incipient tourism industry developing around the destination.

1.4 Third Phase: Enshrinement

MacCannell (1976) has identified ‘enshrinement’ as the third phase in the evolution of attractions. By this he means a phase where there is an increase in tourism numbers and the attraction’s reputation is enhanced. During this phase the attraction developed its third and final spatial zone, as outlined by Gunn (1994) – that of its ‘zone of closure’, an outer area of community influence of travel structures such as land uses for modern travel services, such as railway stations and grandstands. The enshrinement phase equates with Butler’s (1980) ‘development’, ‘consolidation’, and ‘stagnation’ stages, which are characterised initially by rapid tourism growth and dramatic changes in the tourism industry associated with the destination, its consolidation, and then its stagnation represented by declining visitor numbers.

1.5 Fourth Phase: Duplication

MacCannell’s (1976) fourth phase in the development of attractions, is that of ‘duplication’, when copies of the nucleus of the attraction, are made available through media such as paintings, photographs, and postcards.

1.6 Fifth Phase: Social Reproduction

For MacCannell, the final stage is social reproduction which ‘occurs when groups, cities, and regions begin to name themselves after famous attractions’.

Through a series of case studies from Victoria, summarized below, this work complements Horne’s (2005) exploration of the evolution of ideas of wonder in scenic Australia in the nineteenth century that helped to create both a tourism industry and an enduring interest in the natural environment. For Horne (2005: 8), the ‘answer to the question of why particular natural features became favourite destinations for nineteenth-century tourists in Australia is in their appeal to certain nineteenth-century cultural interests and sensibilities, the wonder expected to be inspired by a view, a geological formation, a botanical specimen’. Indeed, the sites that are studied in this book are themselves vestige...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Abbreviations
• Metric Conversions
• Acknowledgements
• Biographical Notes
• 1 Introduction: Nascent Tourism in Victoria, Australia – Insights Into the Evolution of Its Tourism Landscape by Ian D. Clark
• 2 Lal Lal Falls Scenic Reserve by Ian D. Clark
• 3 The Buchan Caves Reserve by Ian D. Clark
• 4 Bunjils Shelter, Black Range Scenic Reserve by Ian D. Clark
• 5 Den of Nargun, Mitchell River National Park by Sharnee Sergi and Ian D.Clark
• 6 Hanging Rock Recreation Reserve by Stephanie Skidmore and Ian D. Clark
• 7 Mount Buninyong Scenic Reserve by Jaimie Watson and Ian D. Clark
• 8 Tower Hill State Game Reserve by Lisa Justin and Ian D. Clark
• 9 The You Yangs Regional Park By Ever Dolce and Ian D. Clark
• Index
• Backcover