Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 29, No. 3, pp. 631–647, 2002  2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved Printed in Great Britain 0160-7383/02/$22.00 www.elsevier.com/locate/atoures PII: S0160-7383(01)00073-1 TOURISTS AND ABORIGINAL PEOPLE Chris Ryan Waikato University, New Zealand Jeremy Huyton Australian International Hotel School, Australia Abstract: This paper reports the survey results of a study of tourists visiting Central Aus- tralia. It reports that they ranked attractions based on Australian Aboriginal culture as being less attractive than other activities. The paper suggests that satisfaction ratings with various aspects of the visit to Aboriginal culture are associated with the level of importance that are attributed to those features. The findings confirm other research whereby the highest levels of interest in Aboriginal culture are shown by specific groups who can be identified by socio- demographic variables and, furthermore, such levels of interest are shown only by a minority of all tourists to such sites. Keywords: Australian Aboriginal people, indigenous tourism, cultural attractions, Australia.  2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Re ´sume ´: Touristes et Aborige `nes australiens. Cet article rapporte les re ´sultats d’un sondage de touristes en Australie centrale. L’article rapporte que les touristes ont classe ´ les attractions base ´es sur la culture des Aborige `nes australiens comme ayant moins d’attraits que d’autres activite ´s. On sugge `re que les indices de satisfaction des diffe ´rents e ´le ´ments d’une visite a ` la culture aborige `ne sont associe ´s au niveau d’importance que les touristes attribuent a ` ces e ´le ´ments. Les conclusions confirment d’autres recherches selon lesquelles les plus hauts niveaux d’inte ´re ˆt pour la culture aborige `ne seraient manifeste ´s par des groupes spe ´cifiques qui peuvent e ˆtre identifie ´s par des variables sociode ´mographiques et que, en plus, de tels niveaux d’inte ´re ˆt sont montre ´s seulement par une minorite ´ de tous les touristes a ` de tels sites. Mots-cle ´s: Aborige `nes australiens, tourisme indige `ne, attractions culturelles, Australie.  2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. INTRODUCTION This paper initially describes the context of the research in terms of current initiatives in promoting Australian Aboriginal culture as a tourism product; the type of debate that has been engendered in aca- demic and wider literature about such products; and emerging con- cerns about the effectiveness of such tourism products in generating desired returns to Aboriginal communities, citing Tjapukai Dance Theatre as one such example. It is noted that tourists see little of what is a developing Aboriginal cultural revival. While the paper’s main con- Chris Ryan is Professor of Tourism at the University of Waikato (Private Bag 3105, Hamil- ton, New Zealand. Email <caryan@waikato.ac.nz>). He is the editor of Tourism Management and a member of the International Academy for the Study of Tourism. Jeremy Huyton is Associate Dean at the Australian International Hotel School. His research interests relate to hospitality service and product design. 631