Explorers of a Different Kind: A History of Antarctic Tourism 1966-2016

• Main Author: Erceg, Diane
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Subjects: Antarctica; Tourism; Environmental History; Gender; Masculinity; Technology; Climate Change; Heroic Exploration; Antarctic; The Antarctic; South Pole; Antarc*; South pole
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1885/132936; https://doi.org/10.25911/5d70f1cba8e94; https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/132936/4/Erceg%20Thesis%202017.pdf.jpg

In 1966, American tour operator, Lindblad Travel, began small-scale tourist cruises to Antarctica. Over the course of the next 50 years, what began as an offbeat travel destination transformed into an iconic tourist attraction. Annual tourist visits to Antarctica grew from a few hundred to tens of thousands; modes of transport to the continent diversified to include yachts, cruise ships, icebreakers and aircraft; and the activities available to Antarctic tourists ranged from one-day scenic flights to multi-month mountaineering expeditions and ski tours to the South Pole. Antarctic tourism numbers trebled in the 1990s, with an influx of Russian ice ships into the tourism fleet. This thesis chronicles that 50-year history of Antarctic tourism growth and diversification. Its narrative centres on the efforts of enterprising tour operators to secure their footing on a physically and politically formidable continent. Government officials and a mounting environmental movement invariably resisted these efforts. And the safety, environmental integrity and self-sufficiency of the industry were challenged in the wake of a series of environmental emergencies. Even so, Antarctic tour operators were successful in forging a robust industry through technical ingenuity and political nous. By underscoring their environmental ethos, and their influential role in raising public awareness of Antarctica, tour operators presented themselves as the responsible stewards of an innocuous practice that was consistent with Antarctica’s governing principles. Each chapter in this 50-year tourism history also offers some insight into the Antarctic tourist imaginary, a theme that is explored further through a series of reflections. These reflections reveal that the Antarctic tourism industry draws strongly on the dominant image of Antarctica as a pristine wilderness, frozen in a perpetual age of heroic exploration. By suppressing its own history, the Antarctic tourism industry strives to maintain a perception of the continent as an enduring ...