The Clunes Book Town festival as a model of sustainable rural tourism
Michelle Duffy
Federation University Australia
Michelle Duffy is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Federation University Australia. Her research focuses on four broad but interrelated areas: the examination of the concepts of community resilience, wellbeing and sustainability; the significance of emotion and affect in creating notions of belonging and exclusion; the role of art practice – specifically that of sound, music and performance – in creating and/or challenging notions of identity and belonging in public spaces and public events; and an exploration of the body as a means of embodied, emotional and affective communication.
Judith Mair
University of Queensland
Dr Judith Mair is a Senior Lecturer in Event Management in the Tourism Cluster of the UQ Business School, University of Queensland, Australia. Her research interests include the impacts of events on community and society; consumer behaviour in events and tourism; the relationship between events and climate change; and business and major events. Judith is working on a number of projects including researching the links between events and social capital; investigating events and social justice and inclusion and understanding the benefits for attendees of attending conferences and conventions; and assessing the potential impacts of climate change on the tourism and events sector. She is the author of ‘Conferences and Conventions: A Research Perspective’ and ‘Events and Sustainability’, both published by Routledge in 2015 as well as over 30 academic papers in internationally recognised journals.
Abstract
Clunes is a small rural town located in Victoria, Australia. Creative Clunes, established as part of the Australian government’s rural renewal program, was successful in 2012 in its application to have Clunes accepted as... [ view full abstract ]
Clunes is a small rural town located in Victoria, Australia. Creative Clunes, established as part of the Australian government’s rural renewal program, was successful in 2012 in its application to have Clunes accepted as Australia’s first Book Town by the International Organisation of Book Towns. This organisation is promoted as an exemplary model of sustainable rural tourism, offering significant economic returns on a relatively small investment, and this in turn fits well with models for regional development. Nonetheless what is required is an aesthetic appeal that capitalises on idealised images of the small rural town or village. Place is indeed at the centre of book town tourism, yet in towns like Clunes, whose place is this?
We seek to better understand how festivals become a mechanism to address and express community concerns about inclusion, renewal and sustainability. Festivals are inherently about celebrating community and understood as community-building activities. However, festivals are not without criticisms, and some have been accused of being elitist and acting as spaces of exclusion.
Our project aimed to identify the contribution of the Book Town festival to community cohesion and community strengthening, and understand how the frameworks and strategies of key stakeholders are used to create a sense of community. We took a qualitative approach, including in-depth stakeholder interviews (eg festival director, representative of the local tourism association and local chamber of commerce, and hospitality operators), participant observation during the Clunes Book Town festival and a content analysis of local and regional media coverage of the festival.
Our findings suggest that the approach taken by Creative Clunes has revitalised the town. Instead of empty shops and a dwindling population, Clunes now benefits from cafes bars, bustling book shops and a reinvigorated sense of community. Stakeholders interviewed highlighted the positive changes that have taken place, including an increase in tourist numbers and even a growing number of amenity migrants moving out from Melbourne.
The clear conclusion that can be drawn from this study is that festivals, particularly arts and cultural festivals, can play an important role in creating and strengthening community as well as boosting rural tourism.
Authors
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Michelle Duffy
(Federation University Australia)
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Judith Mair
(University of Queensland)
Topic Areas
Topics: Tourism and Resilience , Topics: Rural Tourism Development
Session
OS-I1 » Rural Tourism Branding (09:00 - Wednesday, 5th October, Tavolara Room, Santa Chiara Complex)
Presentation Files
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