The Old Melbourne Gaol Museum: A Heritage Site With Stakeholders, Conservation Principles, Marketing Strategies, And Sustainability Initiatives

Stakeholders of The Old Melbourne Gaol Museum

Question:

Discuss about the Old Melbourne Goal as a Cultural Heritage Site.

The Old Melbourne Gaol Museum is one of the most important heritage places in Australia which attracts lots of tourists on the regular basis. Recently, the importance of saving the heritage culture in Australia is increasing which has raised many concerns in order to protect these sites. This particular report has been made on The Old Melbourne Gaol Museum by analysing the relationship between different stakeholders, conservations principles applied to save the place, visitor statistics, marketing activities used, and sustainability principles applied. At, the end, proper recommendations are made in order to increase the customer and also the sustainable tourism.

Analysis of ownership and stakeholders and the current stage of relationship between heritage and tourism management at the site

The Old Melbourne Gaol Museum is one of the biggest historical places in Australia which is visited by millions of tourists every year. It was once filled with the criminals, mentally disabled people and others who committed crimes (Donohoe, 2012). However, later, it was changed to the museum but still some artefacts of that time and also the gallows, where the prisoners were hanged are still in place.

The building is currently owned and managed by the National Trust of Australia and it is its biggest stakeholders. Other than that, the tourists, central government, local communities are also its stakeholders. National Trust of Australia is a national peak body which is committed to preserve and promote Australia’s indigenous, natural and historic heritage. The Old Melbourne Gaol Museum is also managed by this trust only and it makes sure that the building is continuously managed by doing construction on the regular basis, maintaining the halls, gall ways, gardens, etc. the trust makes sure that the building is well preserved and because of that it takes care of the proper security so that people do not come and destroy the place. All the artefacts are well preserved by this trust in terms of their cleaning, care, maintenance so that it can attract lots of tourists on the regular basis (Duval and Smith, 2013)

Other than this, the trust is also responsible for the appropriate promotion of this place so that lots of tourists can visit this place and learn about the past of Australia’s heritage.  They make sure that all the tourists not only international but also the domestic one can understand the value of this place and visit it. The trust is doing great work in terms of attracting the tourists, etc. However, there are various things which are still unlooked like facilities for visitors, maintenance of the building, nearby areas, etc.

Conservation Principles of The Old Melbourne Gaol Museum

The central government of Australia is also one of its stakeholders as they are responsible to provide the proper funds to NTA (National Trust of Australia) so that they can protect the Old Melbourne Gaol Museum in an effective manner. The government also selects the board of NTA and gives them the instructions to manage the heritage. The local community as a shareholder is also very important as they also have the responsibility to protect the local monument because it provides them with work opportunities as tourist’s guides, local sellers, hotels, etc. They have to make sure that the tourists do not harm the heritage and get home with lots of knowledge about the place. Tourists are also one of the important stakeholders of the heritage as these are the people who provide income to the local population, government, etc. These people may be local or international but are responsible to visit these places and get knowledge about them (Bramwell and Lane, 2012)

The tourism management and cultural heritage management (CHM) often have a very awkward relationship. The CHM is directly responsible for the provision as well for the conservation of cultural heritage assets while the tourism management handles the role of product development and promotion role. There is always tension between these two bodies at The Old Melbourne Gaol Museum because the CHM argues that cultural values are being compromised for the commercial gains while tourism management says that tourism values are being compromised when a management attitude exists that any ‘touristification’ has a corrupting influence. CHM says that they are trying their best to reintroduce people to their cultural roots and are also reinvigorating people’s interest in history and culture while tourism management argues that they are the one who promotes the place and aware people about the places like this (Alberti and Giusti, 2012). With this relationship, it can be said that it is important for NTA to interfere and make both the parties well aware of their roles and increase their collaborations.

Conservation principles and concepts applied

NTA has described different conservation principles, policies and guidance which are all been stated to preserve The Old Melbourne Gaol Museum. The first principle states that the historic environment is a shared resource which means that the people should value this heritage as a part of their culture and natural heritage because it reflects the knowledge, beliefs and traditions of the diverse communities. The heritage value represents the public interest, regardless of the ownership of NTA (Prideaux, Timothy and Chon, 2013). The use of different laws, public policy and public investment are justified in order to protect the interest of the public. There should be proper advice and assistance from public sources in order to help the owners sustain he heritage.

Marketing Activities of The Old Melbourne Gaol Museum

The second principle states that everyone should be able to participate in sustaining the environment of The Old Melbourne Gaol Museum. People can freely contribute their knowledge in order to protect the place. Tourists should be able to learn to sustain the historic environment of the place and experts should encourage the other to learn about the place. The third principle states that understanding the significance of the place is very vital because it contains the diverse culture and natural heritage values that people get associated with.

As per the fourth principle, The Old Melbourne Gaol Museum should be managed to sustain its value. Proper actions should be taken to counter the harmful effects of natural change or to minimise the risk of a disaster on time and in terms of severity and likelihood of identified consequences and sustainability (Briassoulis and Van der Straaten, 2013). There should be asperity in quality of design and execution so that it can be valued now and also in future. As per the fifth principle, the decision about change must be reasonable, transparent and consistent and should be done under expertise, experience judgement, etc. The last principle states that documenting and learning from decisions is essential in order to maintain the cumulative account of things that happened to The Old Melbourne Gaol Museum and the ways in which the significance of place got altered.

Application and critical analysis of the Market Appeal – Robusticity Matrix

Market Appeal – Robusticity Matrix is an assessment tool to be applied in a pro-active way in order to assess potential and determine issues that require resolution. It has two axis namely Market Appeal and Robusticity in which Market Appeal is focused on experiential and product values while Robusticity is focused on issues linked to physical and cultural values.

Figure 1: Market appeal/ Robusticity matrix of Old Melbourne Gaol Museum

The Old Melbourne Gaol was raised in the phases from 1851 to 1864 via Department of Public Works of the Victorian colony; the credit of design was given to the Chief Architect (Henry Ginn). The eldest remaining section which was the Second Cell Block between 1851 to 1853 that served as a museum and included a large block along with 3 cell tiers ending in the central hall in 1860 at the scaffold site.

The block of the cell is properly preserved to give a complete understanding of the circumstances continued by the prisoners. Well, maintenance was provided to Chapel and entrance buildings, as these were the main focus to complex buildings. They have been changed on the inside; however, almost the work is convertible. The Old Melbourne Gaol Museum, Entrance buildings, and courtyard area of intellectual, artistic, architectural, technical and significant to the Victoria’ state. The site of the original gaol multifaceted and has archaeological significance to the State of Victoria.

Sustainability Initiatives of The Old Melbourne Gaol Museum

The building complex is significant in past for its major role in the oldest existing gaol in Melbourne, further the Remand, Debtors and woman prisons for the city area for much of its operational life where the prisoners were executed of original funerals of them at the gaol, inclusive of Ned Kelly. Above description shows that Old Melbourne Gaol has high Robusticity and medium Market appeal

Cultural tourist visitor analysis and marketing activities attracting these types of tourists

Cultural tourism in Australia is increasing day by day and the government is also trying their best to attract the customers with different marketing activities. There were total of 746, 100 visitors arrival during June in Australia and out of those 9% of the total people visited The Old Melbourne Gaol Museum which is a good number (Welch, 2013). However, the numbers are much less as compared to the other popular sites but still the places associated with death, ghost hoax, etc. are visited by less people (Jamal and Camargo, 2014). There was increase of 4% in the number of tourists since last year.

In order to increase the number of visitors to The Old Melbourne Gaol Museum, the NTA is doing lots of initiatives so that more and more people can visit this place. The NTA organizes an annual fest in which the people are invited with different costumes and lots of competitions are held (Welch, 2017). People from all over the world are invited in the event via website of historical place and also via the Australian tourism website (Witcomb, 2013). Other than this, lots of promotions are done on the social media platforms with paid advertising so that people can learn about the place and generate the curiosity. The place is given on rent to various film and television makers so that its visibility can be increased on the national and international screens and people can be called with the increase in craze (Park, 2013).

Analysis of current sustainability concepts and strategies applied at the site

There are different kinds of sustainability initiatives and strategies that are adopted by NTA in order to bring sustainability in The Old Melbourne Gaol Museum. One of the biggest initiatives that the organization has taken is that they have completely banned the polybags near the site so that there is pollution. All the shops nearby have been told to use only paper bags so that it can be recycled appropriately (Joshi, 2012). The lightings in the facility are completely fuelled by the solar power and it has helped to reduce the energy consumption a lot.

Water management is also encouraged by the NTA in The Old Melbourne Gaol Museum as proper facilities are there which collects the rainwater and then it is recycled it to provide fresh water to all the tourists. Steps are also taken in order to increase the greenery around the museum so that the green environment can be promoted.        

Recommendations to improve the management of stakeholders and appropriate changes to existing or the introduction of new sustainability strategies

It is very important to improve the management of the stakeholders in The Old Melbourne Gaol Museum so that everyone can work together and increase the tourism at this place. The first thing that can be done is to improve the relations between tourism management and cultural heritage management (Buckley, 2012). Both can work together where tourism management can work in terms of increasing the tourism in the place and cultural heritage can provide the knowledge so that people can learn about this place more and more.

Other than that, efforts can be made in order to remove the hoaxes regarding ghost and other illegal activities so that interest of tourists can be increased at The Old Melbourne Gaol Museum (Smith, 2017). People can be told regarding the interesting stories about this place so that curiosity in their mindset can be increased and they get instigated to visit the palace. The local environment can also be m in terms of providing better staying and eating facilities to the tourists. The place can also be rearranged with proper restroom facilities, food cafeteria, and rest facilities so that people can visit (Smith, Waterton and Watson, 2012).

In terms of sustainability, the transportation can be changed and green vehicles should be allowed near the site. People should be told to throw the waste material in the dustbin which further can be recycled by establishing the waste management facilities (Ross, 2012). More greenery can be increased near the place by planting the trees and maintain the garden nearby. All the artefacts should be protected with proper care and people should not be allowed to touch them (Cohen and Cohen, 2012).

Conclusion

In accordance with the present study, conclusion can be drawn that role of stakeholders is very important as they all have been responsible for maintenance and promotion of this site. The study shows that NTA is trying hard to apply different conservation principles for the same and it has helped to increase the tourism. However, there are still some measures that can be taken by the NTA like strengthening relations among each other, apply sustainable measures, etc

References

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