%0 Journal Article %T Exploring the market appeal of Indigenous tourism: A netnographic perspective %A Afiya Holder %A Lisa Ruhanen %J Journal of Vacation Marketing %@ 1479-1870 %D 2019 %R 10.1177/1356766717750423 %X Indigenous tourism in Australia continues to decline in spite of the global marketing efforts of the country¡¯s national tourism organization. One suggestion is that social desirability bias in previous visitor demand studies has been masking the underlying causes for this low market appeal. A netnographic approach was adopted in this exploratory study that utilized 4684 online reviews from international visitors to elicit qualitative insights into visitor¡¯s satisfaction and dissatisfaction with their Indigenous tourism experiences in Australia, with the aim of uncovering the underlying factors which may account for declining visitor demand. The netnographic approach provided a wealth of insights into the aspects of the experience that visitors viewed both favourably and unfavourably. In fact, it is demonstrated that international visitors are overwhelmingly positive about their experiences, a finding not typically supported in the existing research. As such, this study has highlighted that there is a dissonance between those who actually participate in an Indigenous experience and non-visitors; a number of potential reasons for this are discussed, as are the marketing implications %K Demand %K Indigenous tourism %K market appeal %K marketing %K netnography %K social desirability bias %U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1356766717750423