CONVICT HERITAGE TOURISM: A CASE STUDY OF FREMANTLE PRISON, AUSTRALIA

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Kapil Kumar

Keywords

Convict Heritage, Ghost Tours, Tourism Resource, Tourism Product, Tourist Gaze

Abstract

History and Heritage have traditionally been strong pull factors in tourism. There are countries and destinations with strong tradition in these areas with practically no efforts needed for product designing, promotion or marketing. Destinations like Rome, Vienna or Paris, etc. can be cited in this regard. It is interesting to find that a country like Australia with a history of approximately 200 years (excluding the aborigines’ history) has made extensive use of its history and heritage by converting them into tourism products and convict heritage tourism has emerged as a vital interest area for both domestic as well as international tourism. As a visiting fellow of the Australia India Council (2007) I worked on a project – “How Australia has converted its history and heritage into tourism products?” and further as a visiting Professor under the Australia Endeavour Award 2008 I worked on Convict Heritage in Australia. For this I carried out extensive fieldwork in different parts of Australia. This paper analyses the decision-making and planning for converting convict history and sites into convict heritage sites and further developing them as tourism products. It examines the attractions created in this area and the way they are marketed and promoted. After discussing the broad areas the paper discusses the Fremantle prison as a case study whereby it takes into account its conversion into a convict heritage site and its enrichment into a tourism product by introducing prison tours, theme parties and a live experience of prison life to the visitors. How do the visitors feel about this experience is another aspect dealt with in the paper along with the perceptions and attitudes of the host population, former prison officers and members of the Town Council in Fremantle. The paper also makes certain suggestions for further enrichment and rejuvenation of such tourism products in Australia. The paper, by dealing such themes, provides an insight into this emerging area of new tourism products that provide a successful tourism product case study for others to learn from and follow.

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