Australia welcomes you Year level: 8–9
M007946 International visitors to Australia - dataset. Data reproduced with permission of the copyright holder, Commonwealth of Australia.
About the unit
Unit description
Students investigate the ways in which Australia has been represented as a tourist destination in the past. Following detailed analysis of current visitor arrival data, students design their own promotion campaign to advertise Australia overseas. They explore the ‘See Australia!’, 1930–59 poster collection from the National Library of Australia, which illustrates how Australia and the states and territories were depicted in travel posters from 1930 to 1959. Then, using the data visualisation tool DataGenie, they analyse current data on international visitors to determine criteria to use as a basis for their own advertising campaign in another country.
Knowledge, understandings, skills, values
· Students analyse historical representations of Australia in tourism promotional materials.
· Students analyse current data in different formats about international visitors to Australia using the DataGenie visualisation tool.
· Students develop targeted promotional materials based on their analysis.
Focus questions
· How was Australia represented as a tourist destination in the past?
· What are the characteristics of international visitors to Australia?
· How should Australia be marketed as a tourist destination in the future?
Resources
Digital curriculum resources
/ DataGenie: M007946 International visitors to Australia - dataset: http://www.datagenie.edu.au/ivs/ R10629 'See Australia!', 1930-59
Internet sites
Australian tourism websites
· Tourism Australia: http://www.australia.com
· Tourism Queensland: http://www.tq.com.au
· Tourism Victoria: http://www.tourism.vic.gov.au
· Tourism New South Wales: http://corporate.tourism.nsw.gov.au
· Discover Tasmania: http://www.discovertasmania.com
· South Australian Tourism Commission: http://www.tourism.sa.gov.au
· Australian Capital Tourism: http://www.tourism.act.gov.au
· Tourism Western Australia: http://www.tourism.wa.gov.au
· Tourism Northern Territory: http://www.tourismnt.com.au
Software
· MS Excel or equivalent (optional)
· Mindmapping software such as Inspiration
Other resources
· Materials or software for creating an advertising campaign
Attached printable resources
The following worksheets referred to in the unit of work are available for you to modify, print and use in your own teaching and learning context.
· ‘See Australia!’ poster collection worksheet
· Where do visitors go?
· Who is coming to Australia? How has the number of tourists changed?
· Who is coming to Australia? What do we know about the visitors?
· What do visitors do (then and now)?
· How has the number of international visitors changed?
· Which age groups should be targeted with advertising?
· What are the most popular activities?
Teaching the unit
Setting the scene
Teaching and learning activities
My journey
Begin this activity by sharing with the students a journey you have made either overseas or to a destination somewhere in Australia. Provide insights about the destination, reasons for the journey and exciting activities undertaken.
Student journeys
Discuss the nature of tourism with input from the students based on their experiences and work towards a class definition of the terms ‘tourist’ and ‘tourism’.
Ask students to share their experiences of travel they have undertaken or would like to do. Ask students to bring in a poster, pamphlets, show a website or other material that was used by their family when planning their travel, or to bring in a picture of somewhere they would like to visit. Have students share with the class the aspects that entice them to visit this location. This provides an opportunity for students to explore differing perspectives on travel.
Questions for discussion:
Have you ever been tourists?
Did you travel within or outside Australia?
Where did you visit as tourists?
What governed the choice of destination?
How would you define the word ‘tourist’?
Provide the students with definitions of a tourist and tourism from a dictionary.
Investigating
Resources
· R10629 'See Australia!', 1930-59
· ‘See Australia!’ poster collection worksheet (pages 13–15)
· Where do visitors go? (page 16)
· Who is coming to Australia? How has the number of tourists changed? (pages 17–18)
· How has the number of international visitors changed? (pages 26–27)
· DataGenie:
· M007946 International visitors to Australia - dataset > Where do they go?
· M007946 International visitors to Australia - dataset > Who is coming?
· M007946 International visitors to Australia - dataset > Who is coming? > Visitor age and gender
· M007946 International visitors to Australia - dataset > What do they do?
· Who is coming to Australia? What do we know about the visitors? (pages 19–22)
· What do visitors do (then and now)? (pages 23–25)
· Mindmapping software
· Australian tourism websites as listed on page 2
Teaching and learning activities
How was Australia advertised in the past?
The R10629 'See Australia!' 1930-59 poster collection advertises Australia and its states and territories as tourist destinations from 1930 to 1959. The following table identifies the poster numbers and the advertised locations.
Location / Poster number/sAustralia / 4, 5, 6
ACT / 3, 9, 21
New South Wales / 7, 8, 10, 18, 19, 20, 26
Northern Territory / 34
Queensland / 2, 22, 23, 24, 25
South Australia / 13, 14, 15, 16, 17
Tasmania / 11, 12
Victoria / 27, 28, 29, 30
Western Australia / 1, 31, 32, 33
As a whole class activity study posters 4, 5 and 6, which promote Australia as a tourist destination, and ask the students what they observe. Record their observations on the board and consider how these could be classified.
What do you see?
Why were these aspects included?
What don’t you see?
Why have these aspects been ignored?
From these observations what does this say about Australia from 1930 to 1959?
Ask students if this is how they would depict Australia today. Students may identify:
· scenery, eg mountains, hills, trees
· fauna and flora, eg parrots, cockatoos, distinctive flowers
· people
· other observations, eg romance, coach and horses.
Students may identify that these features were rarely, if at all, depicted in tourism advertising:
· built environment
· Indigenous people
· beaches.
From R10629 'See Australia!', 1930-59 poster collection, allocate one poster per student ensuring all the states and territories are covered according to the table provided.
Ask each student to study their allocated poster and complete the ‘See Australia!’ poster collection worksheet (pages 13–15).
After studying their poster, students should join with other students who studied the same state or territory to combine their observations. They should add additional information from others in the group to the table provided in the ‘See Australia!’ poster collection worksheet and identify similarities between the observations. A spokesperson from the group should present the main findings from the posters on their allotted state or territory to the class.
During this activity it would be helpful to display the posters on one or more computers in the classroom.
Reflection
Questions for discussion include:
How did your observations differ from those of your peers?
Were some students able to see more detail in the posters?
How has travel to Australia changed over time?
Questions for discussion include:
How would overseas visitors have reached Australia from 1930 to 1959?
How would domestic visitors have travelled at this time?
How long would journeys have taken?
Where might these posters have been displayed?
How much leisure time would people have had in the years from 1930 to 1959?
Note to teachers: the following activities are based on Tourism Research Australia’s International visitors to Australia (IVS) survey. The dataset is available to explore interactively using the data visualisation tool DataGenie: http://www.datagenie.edu.au/ivs
Data from the IVS survey has been grouped into folders (known as data visualisation folders) to answer particular questions, eg Who is coming? Where do visitors go? Each of the data visualisation folders contains different types of data visualisations, which represent the data in different ways, eg standard graphical formats, data overlay on maps and change over time motion graphs.
Information about the dataset and how to explore the data in the tool are available on the website.
Which parts of the states and territories are most visited today?
International visitors to Australia today may seek a very different experience from those visitors in the past. For this activity students investigate how the number of international visitors varies across the state or territory they have been allocated.
Ask students to complete the Where do visitors go? worksheet (page 16) using the relevant data from M007946 International visitors to Australia - dataset. Have them select the Where do they go? folder, then the relevant data visualisation for their allocated place.
Assessment
Students could be assessed on their completion of the two worksheets: ‘See Australia!’ poster collection worksheet (pages 13–15) and Where do visitors go? (page 16) to gauge their observational and classification skills, their research skills and their capability with creating a mind map using the data visualisations in DataGenie.
An assessment of the ‘See Australia!’ poster collection worksheet might focus on detailed observations for all sections pertinent to the allocated image: use of appropriate geographic language (eg human, physical, rural, urban, mountainous, lowland, valley, arid, infrastructure, climate, maritime); quality of the students’ sketches; appropriate classification; relevant answers to questions, and detailed additional information from group discussion.
Assessment of the Where do visitors go? worksheet may focus on layout, clarity, choice of images, appropriate image size and choice of relevant statistics and explanation to indicate the variation within the state or territory.
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As an alternative assessment task, ask students to choose one of the following questions and provide a written one-page response.
1. The natural phenomena associated with landscapes and weather are appropriate themes for advertising today as they were in the period from 1930 to 1959.
- ‘A picture is worth a thousand words.’ Explain how important the visual image is in the promotion of tourist material.
3. Although many of the attractions of a holiday in Australia remain the same, the way they are marketed has changed between 1930 and 2009. Discuss.
What are the characteristics of international visitors to Australia today?
Allocate students in pairs or individually to become experts in the travel patterns, current trends and interests of international visitors from the following countries: New Zealand, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan, Thailand, Korea, China, USA, Canada, UK and Germany.
The brief from Tourism Australia
Tourism Australia has asked the class to produce new resources advertising Australian states and territories in the following countries: New Zealand, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan, Thailand, Korea, China, USA, Canada, UK and Germany. The advertising materials must include three common criteria about Australia (determined by the class); may focus on a particular state or territory and must be targeted for advertising in the specified target countries.
Each pair of students will become advisers on one nationality of visitors and will design appropriate advertising material for their target country. In order to do this, more evidence must be gathered to target the audience and meet their needs and interests.
Students will research current trends and patterns in visitor arrivals using M007946 International visitors to Australia - dataset (http://www.datagenie.edu.au/ivs) and record their findings on the following worksheets:
· Who is coming to Australia? How has the number of tourists changed? (pages 17–18)
· Who is coming to Australia? What do we know about the visitors? (pages 19–20)
· What do visitors do (then and now)? (pages 23–25)
For most worksheets the class will make an overview of the data before each pair of students researches their target country.
As advisers on one visitor country, students will be asked to justify their observations. Encourage students to provide evidence from the data visualisation/s to support their recommendations. This could be in the form of screen captures.
Who is coming to Australia?
In DataGenie select the Who is coming? folder, then the Visitor numbers since 1999 data visualisation and complete the Who is coming To Australia? How has the number of tourists changed? worksheet (pages 17–18).
Note to teachers: the graph shows growth of visitors to Australia for the Sydney Olympics of 2000, decline in Japanese tourists because of fiscal difficulties, 2003 SARS outbreak which affected travel from China and the effect of global financial crisis on Chinese tourists in late 2008.
What do we know about the visitors?
The survey of visitors to Australia provides a picture of the age and gender of visitors and their nationality.
In DataGenie select the Who is coming? folder, then the Visitor age and gender data visualisation and complete the Who is coming to Australia? What do we know about the visitors? worksheet.
Look at the overall totals as a class group and then ask students to complete the activity for their allocated country. Advise students to view the graph showing age and gender of visitors from their allocated country.
What do visitors do?
People travel for many different reasons and engage in a variety of activities according to their interests. Refer back to the activities the students said they did while on holiday.
Compare the activities shown in the ‘See Australia!’ poster collection with those of tourists today using the What do visitors do (then and now)? worksheet.
In DataGenie select the What do they do? folder, then the Activities by country and single year data visualisation. Remind students to record information about the main activities undertaken by visitors from their allocated country.