Sydney’s half-hearted heritage tourism reopening

World Heritage listed Hyde Park Park Barracks (1819) in the centre of Sydney, is still only open 4 days each week, 6 months after the reopening of international borders. © Mark Bowyer

Six months after the reopening of international borders, many of Sydney’s heritage and historical museums are still struggling to resume normal opening hours. That puts them out of step with the rest of the country and out of reach for many international travellers.

Sydney opened borders to international tourism back in February. The city has hosted big events like Pride, VIVID and the Writers Festival. Big money is being spent by Destination NSW and Tourism Australia promoting Sydney to the world. There are more major events in the pipeline. But unlike other Australian cities and towns, many of Sydney’s heritage tourism sites are still operating to a limited closed-border era timetable. These restricted opening times mean many of our cultural tourism destinations are out of reach to international travellers and tour operators.

Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney’s main World Heritage Listed convict site opens just 4 days a week. Even with a prime city location, and after a recent $18 million upgrade, it’s open less to tourists than other smaller and more remote World Heritage listed sites around Australia.

Cadman's Cottage, the oldest residence in the centre of Sydney, sits closed and unused right by the harbour at Circular Quay. Not far away in The Rocks, the Susannah Place museum is open just 12 hours per week, in one of Sydney’s most famous historic precincts.

Even the iconic views from the Harbour Bridge's Pylon Lookout are only accessible 12 hours each week. 

Hyde Park Barracks is the only World Heritage Listed site we know in Australia, still operating a COVID lockdown era closed-border timetable - it’s located in Sydney’s tourism heart. © Mark Bowyer

In Parramatta, long Sydney’s heritage poor relation, Elizabeth Farm, the oldest colonial building in Australia and residence of coup-plotter and wool pioneer John Macarthur, opens just two days each week. 

Vaucluse House, the beautiful former residence of another complicated colonial, William Charles Wentworth, opens four days a week.

These small museums are fantastic Sydney assets. They add storytelling substance to the city beyond the glamour of the harbour, beaches, casinos, and major events. But they're effectively off the radar to all but the most highly motivated visitors. Their value to Sydney’s tourism economy is underestimated. They should be enriching the Sydney experience with insights about our history.

Australia’s oldest colonial residence (1793) and home to dubious coup plotting colonial, John Macarthur, only opens 2 days per week in Parramatta. © Mark Bowyer

Vaucluse House The residence of William Charles Wentworth © Mark Bowyer

This is a Sydney problem. 

Lesser heritage sites and small museums I checked are fully operational in other Australian cities and towns. They open six or seven days a week - normal opening times for major historical sites.

The Sydney sites in question are mostly run by Sydney Living Museums (SLM), a NSW state government body formed to operate historic buildings and smaller museums. I asked SLM when normal hours would resume and was told no decision had been made. I couldn’t get a clear answer as to why these assets are not more available to city visitors?

Sydney’s biggest cultural travel destinations, the NSW Art Gallery, the Australian Museum and others, are operating normally. 

It's the important small stuff that's languishing.

So what's Sydney’s problem with promoting and operating small museums and heritage locations? 

Is there a funding issue at Sydney Living Museums? We can only assume so.

National Trust managed Government House in Parramatta the oldest public building in the country, seems to be operating normally. But visiting Sydney’s historical sites is a hit and miss affair.
© Mark Bowyer

There’s no shortage of other investment in Sydney cultural institutions at the moment. The state government is putting $450 million into the Sydney Modern project, an expansion of the NSW Art Gallery. $500 million is going into a controversial renewal of the Powerhouse Museum in Ultimo - a museum that was facing closure two years ago. $800 plus million has been earmarked for a massive ill-defined Parramatta Powerhouse Museum. 

That's more than $1.5 billion in the new cultural project pipeline. But the city doesn't seem to have the cash to market and operate the rich cultural assets it already has.

How much could it cost to open these small existing heritage assets to normal hours, enabling their inclusion in international tour plans? What’s the cost to the travel experience from their closure?

The lucrative heritage tourism market doesn’t seem to hold the sway it should in Sydney.

None of this bodes well for the future recurrent funding of the enormous new cultural projects in development. 

These are the observations of an interested outsider returned to Sydney with a long history in cultural tourism and tourism product in South East Asia and Asia. I’m now adding Sydney and Australia to my tourism focus. I'd be delighted to hear from those with an inside perspective (and anyone else).

Hobart's MONA Museum takes a stand on mandatory vaccination

MONA Hobart, leading the way on staff vaccination @ Mark Bowyer Thinking Travel

In the absence of government leadership on mandatory vaccination for the tourism and hospitality industries, David Walsh, maverick founder of Hobart's incredible MONA museum, has taken a stand, dabbled in a persuasive piece of philosophy, and mandated vaccination for staff.

In a memo, since shared on the MONA blog, Walsh reminds his staff that mandates and constraints on freedom for the public good, are everywhere. And that mandatory vaccination is no different.

Walsh’s arguments are refreshingly clear and straightforward and they’re resonating with a battered travel industry anxious about vaccine hesitancy among staff and looking for precedents for mandating vaccination.

He leads his piece with a quote from dissident author Alexander Solzhenitsyn "A society with unlimited rights is incapable of standing to adversity."

The memo goes on to say, "What happens when we want to undertake a journey, but a government-mandated intervention delays it, because, they say, it serves the greater good? Is that an infringement on our rights?

I’m talking about traffic lights. Today, while taking the kids to school, I had to wait for a total of six minutes while cars went somewhere else."

And concludes, "A few staff might think we are trampling on their rights, but the one right they think we are restricting doesn’t exist. Our staff don’t have the right to trample on the rights of their colleagues."

MONA’s David Walsh is leading the vaccination conversation @ Mark Bowyer Thinking Travel

Australia has been dancing around the issue of mandatory vaccination for workers and customers. Some countries have openly embraced vaccine passports - making life more straightforward for business.

With COVID outbreaks in Sydney and Melbourne continuing to grow, there isn't a day when the Prime Minister and state premiers don’t implore Australians to get vaccinated. The word “mandate” is the problem. The PM, who has deftly perfected the art of vacating thorny pandemic questions, from quarantine to vaccine procurement, has now expressed a reluctance to make a call on government cover for companies mandating vaccination.

This is especially difficult for tourism and hospitality businesses - the smaller the business, the bigger the issues with legal implications. What is the local cafe supposed to do?

It’s easier for the big guys and first to buy in was Qantas, announcing that vaccination would be mandated for staff and passengers. Qantas followed up with its beautiful Fly Away ad.

Qantas Fly Away vaccination ad

Other major businesses in travel and tourism have bought in with decisions to mandate vaccination.

Running one of the coolest tourism venues in Australia gives Walsh special authority.

As vaccination rates rise, and the day of a national opening draws nearer, the mandate questions (and vaccination passports) will become more pressing. Walsh has taken us a little step closer but a lack of clarity for small business remains.

Australia’s tourism industry faces a fractured post-lockdown outlook

© Mark Bowyer - Sydney’s COVID crisis is deepening - Australia’s borders are hardening

Australian tourism businesses may face fragmented borders as the COVID crisis moves towards its second anniversary and tensions rise between COVID-zero States, NSW and the Commonwealth.

As the COVID pandemic charges towards its grim second anniversary, and tourism tentatively reopens in many parts of the world, the outlook for most of Australia's tourism industry is uncertain.

Australia’s federation is fragmenting. Contrast Western Australia and New South Wales. Business is booming in zero-COVID and quick-to-lockdown WA. Tourism businesses are being smashed in slow-to-lockdown New South Wales as we head in to the 9th week of lockdown, with soaring case numbers and tightening restrictions.

Check our video on Australia’s complicated tourism future.

There is a real risk that New South Wales’ policy failure will take down New Zealand, Victoria and the ACT. Other states will battle to keep the Delta variant at bay as the New South Wales outbreak spreads.

The long nightmare of tourism businesses - especially those focused on international markets, drags on.

The Prime Minister is pushing states to agree to the plan to open when vaccination rates reach 80% nationally. Western Australia and others say the situation in New South Wales may change previous commitments.

Last week, WA Premier Mark McGowan, announced the harshest restrictions of the entire pandemic on travellers from New South Wales. It will likely be a long time before normal travel resumes between these states.

The impact of COVID in four of Australia's six states has been wildly different to the impact in New South Wales and Victoria - our two biggest states.

Some tourism businesses in the zero-COVID states, especially WA, have enjoyed record turnover.

The Project gives some deeper background

Western Australian Museum - gonna be a while before Perth’s new museum sees big crowds from Sydney. © Mark Bowyer

New South Wales and Victoria have been less fortunate. Victoria's prospects of containing its NSW-inspired outbreak are looking doubtful.

Meanwhile, New South Wales has surrendered to the idea that COVID will not be eliminated. Premier Berejiklian, with the support of the Prime Minister and Treasurer, seems to be demanding other states follow her dubious lead. This will put other states in a tricky position.

Mark McGowan is not leaving much doubt about the direction he will take WA. When New South Wales feels ready to open up, WA (assuming it's still Delta-free) will be balancing the upside of opening against the lost lives, sickness, hospital strain and economic harm an opening will entail - even with high rates of vaccination. WA's large and vulnerable Indigenous population will further complicate McGowan's decision. Queensland, Tasmania and South Australia will end up juggling similar issues.

It's possible to conceive of a scenario where residents of COVID-normalised NSW (and possibly Victoria) are closed out of zero-COVID states for a protracted period.

Should New South Wales surrender to the current outbreak when vaccination targets are met, and relax restrictions, it may be positioned to tentatively open to some other COVID normalised countries (and states if there are any), while zero-COVID states remain closed to the world and NSW.

It’s a nightmare scenario for the tourism industry - a secession in reverse where NSW (and possibly Victoria thanks to NSW) is isolated from the rest of the Commonwealth.

It’s too early to speculate on that divided scenario. But tensions between zero-COVID premiers, the PM and Gladys Berejiklian are growing.

The New South Wales Premier, who, along with the PM, owns this carnage, insists that there is no such thing as zero COVID. That may be true in a global sense. But the evidence is in. States or countries that can hold the line against COVID until vaccination rates are high and treatments improve, will be saving lives and economies. The longer you hold out, the better the health of your people and your economy.

China has again reminded us of this as it looks to have vanquished a recent Delta outbreak across multiple cities.

Until the recent New South Wales debacle, all Australian states accepted this idea. There are thousands of Australians alive today because the first COVID wave in 2020 was contained.

The NSW outbreak has claimed more than 70 lives to date, will leave thousands with “long COVID” and is causing terrible stress in the hospital system. The delayed lockdown is having wider impacts on community health and well-being.

The experience around the world confirms that high vaccination rates significantly reduce death and serious illness. But vaccination does not stop transmission, deaths and illness - especially among the unvaccinated. COVID will still be a killer when Australia belatedly achieves its vaccination targets. The UK has a high vaccination rate and is still recording more than 100 deaths per day.

© Mark Bowyer New South Wales opted out of an unofficial lockdown orthodoxy adopted by other states. Now borders are hardening.

With most of his economy firing on all cylinders, and few days lost to lockdown since the start of the pandemic, WA's Mark McGowan won't be easily persuaded by team Berjiklian and Morrison that he should risk opening up his state to COVID.

Tourism businesses, especially those in long-suffering NSW and Victoria, will need to think about a complicated situation across the country - no matter how successful NSW and Victoria are in reversing the current crisis.

Australia may even be divided between COVID and zero-COVID bubbles - domestically and internationally.

Our sluggish vaccination rollout means that we are able to learn from a world that is well ahead of us in dealing with post-vaccination COVID issues. If the coming weeks bring good news from abroad in jurisdictions with high vaccination rates, our zero-COVID states may be more ready to open up.

Otherwise the tourism industry may face the nightmare of a nation fragmented well in to 2022.

Parramatta - Australia’s great heritage tourism failure

Parramatta was at the centre of the development of the British penal colony of New South Wales from its beginnings in 1788. Right now it’s at the centre of a property development boom that includes the controversial $800 million Powerhouse Museum project. Despite the bucketloads of cash pouring into Parramatta, the rich heritage tourism opportunities of Sydney's second CBD have never been properly recognised or realised.

A few years ago I was working on a heritage tourism project about Parramatta in Sydney's western suburbs and I asked the concierge at a local international hotel if there were any local historical sites I should visit? She politely advised that there was nothing of historical interest in Parramatta but The Rocks in the city was a great place for history and heritage seekers.

A few days later, I asked one of the staff in the tourism information centre in The Rocks whether there was anything to see in Parramatta. I got the same answer. In The Rocks, I was told, I had Sydney's history at my fingertips. No reason to travel to Parramatta.

These answers were unsurprising. There's a good chance this is what most Sydney residents would say - including a good many Parramatta residents.

When Australians think convict history and heritage, they think The Rocks, Hyde Park Barracks, Port Arthur, Macquarie Harbour, Fremantle Western Australia and other destinations. The international tourism industry thinks the same way.

All of these places have built tourism visitation and a tourism economy around their heritage sites.

Parramatta rarely makes the cut.

Yet Parramatta is equally significant, and has equal or better heritage assets.

Most Australians are unaware of Parramatta’s penal colony history and the remnants of that time, and even less so, Parramatta’s important role in the frontier wars as the British took their colony deeper into First Nations territory.

Missed opportunity - part of the Female Factory precinct © Mark Bowyer

One of Australia’s most impressive heritage sites lies unknown in Parramatta - The Female Factory © Mark Bowyer

Parramatta's failure to establish its deserved position as a heritage tourism destination has many causes. But as record amounts of money flood into the booming city, a fresh and focused effort needs to be made to ensure that heritage opportunities are a fixture in Parramatta's future.

I've visited and photographed all of Parramatta's major heritage properties many times. They include Old Government House, the oldest standing public building in Australia, and Elizabeth Farm, the oldest standing residential dwelling in Australia and the former residence of the Macarthur family.

They’re the best known destinations in Parramatta, well managed and well presented. But I’ve seen few indications that they receive the visitor numbers they should - during or before the pandemic.

Old Government House Parramatta © Mark Bowyer

The Macarthur Family residence, Elizabeth Farm, Parramatta © Mark Bowyer

Recently I've taken an interest in two Parramatta heritage locations that are begging for proper recognition - St John's Cemetery (1790) and the Female Factory (1821).

They should be among Australia's best known convict history sites. But they're virtually unknown. In any other place in Australia they'd be well managed and resourced heritage tourism destinations. But not in Parramatta.

St John's Cemetery is the oldest European Cemetery in Australia (1790), home to the oldest original European grave (1791). It’s the resting place of more than 50 First Fleeters, and other notable figures in the early penal colony. But it's neglected, and doesn't even have the most token signage and presentation, to match its obvious significance (the bit of paper hanging from the noticeboard doesn’t count). It's no different to any abandoned, neglected cemetery anywhere in Australia. But this place is important. And most Australians know nothing of it.

St John’s Cemetery Parramatta - a picture of heritage neglect. ©Mark Bowyer

The oldest original European grave on Australian soil - you’d never know…. St John’s Cemetery Parramatta. ©Mark Bowyer

The lost opportunity at the Female Factory precinct in North Parramatta is more serious. This is the largest and oldest female convict site in Australia with many original structures. What makes this site different is its potential to become a multi-use landmark in Sydney - events, exhibitions, markets - a real community heritage asset. Yet it remains neglected, undeveloped and mostly unknown. It is one of the most impressive and wasted heritage sites in Australia.

The neglect of the Female Factory is a major economic loss to Parramatta and New South Wales.

In Hobart, a later, less significant Female Factory, has few structures on the site. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage listed convict site and a major tourism destination in the city.

Hobart created a World Heritage site out of a lesser remnant. Cascades Female Factory. © Mark Bowyer

Why not Parramatta?

The new Parramatta metro will link the Female Factory site to Parramatta station and the public transport network - a perfect opportunity to finally bring this site and its stories to the world.

Parramatta's heritage assets have long been undervalued and lacking a coherent management and tourism strategy. The creative development of The Female Factory precinct as a community and tourism site would create an anchor heritage destination that would bring benefit all of Parramatta. This should be a priority.

There’s been enough excitement about shiny skyscrapers in Parramatta and enough built. It’s time to put some serious energy into community spaces and Parramatta’s long unrealised tourism potential.

The State Government seems hellbent on its curious $800 million Powerhouse Museum plans. The Female Factory should take precedence.