Facilitating the development of Australian Indigenous tourism enterprises: The Business Ready Program for Indigenous Tourism

Tourism has been identified as a sector capable of offering economic opportunities for Indigenous people in Australia. In 2004, the Federal government introduced a mentoring programme aimed at helping Indigenous people establish or to further develop sustainable tourism businesses. This paper provides a critical examination of the implementation of this programme and factors which affected its outcomes. The examination will hopefully assist in a more effective development of future government programmes. The research was conducted in tandem with the administration of the mentoring programme and was informed by interpretivist and Indigenous research methodologies. A series of semi-structured, in-depth interviews with stakeholders took place over three and a half years; the duration of the programme. The findings suggest that while the programme could be considered relatively successful there were some problems that reduced its effectiveness. For example, mentors had too many businesses in their portfolio, the programme timeframe was too short and there was a lack of specific key performance indicators. Many stakeholders believed that prior consultation with the proposed Indigenous programme participants would have resulted in an improved programme

Demand responsive services: Towards an analytical framework for administrative practice in indigenous settlements

Demand responsiveness is an established principle in the efficient operation of markets. The principle has been applied to government services in international development overseas, and mainstream government service delivery in Australia, but only recently to Indigenous settlements. Shifting the balance in services from supply to demand is seen to have the potential to improve access, outcomes, and sustainability of services. In Indigenous settlements, an important relationship between demand and supply of services does exist, but a deeper analysis is necessary beyond the economic model to account for the complex sociopolitical geographies involved. Further research is required to develop a framework to explain the interactions that occur in practice, to determine the conditions which permit productive relationships to develop between consumers and service providers. The article presents an analytical framework through which to proceed, structured around five proposed research questions