Tourism Management 21 (2000) 307}312

Cultural designs in New Zealand souvenir clothing: the question of

authenticityq
Maggie Asplet!,*, Malcolm Cooper"
!Waiariki Institute of Technology, Private Bag 3028, Rotorua, New Zealand
"University of Southern Queensland: Wide Bay Campus PO Box 910, Hervey Bay, Queensland 4655, Australia
Received 3 April 1998; accepted 4 February 1999

Abstract

This paper reports on one aspect of a two-year study into the viability of markets for Australasian tourist apparel, that of the
authenticity of the motifs used when local cultural themes are depicted on clothing. When the wider study is complete, the result will
be a comparative analysis of the importance of such motifs in the production of clothing, and to the shopping behaviour of tourists in
relation to these products. Following a pilot study carried out during 1996, a survey of 322 visitors was carried out by face-to-face
interview in New Zealand during May}December 1997. The results suggest that there is indeed an important niche market in the
production of designer textiles and clothing incorporating local New Zealand cultural motifs for sale to tourists. The data derived
from the visitor survey also show that authenticity with respect to cultural merchandise is signi"cant, though the results are not as
conclusive as expected. ( 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Designer textiles and clothing; Authenticity; Cultural motifs; Apparel; Niche markets

1. Introduction The overall research project, of which the present

Many writers have noted that communal heritage and
cultural life is an undervalued tourism resource (Hall,
Mitchell & Keelan, 1991; Zeppel & Hall, 1991; Craik,
1992). On the other hand tourism has often been
criticised as having a very high potential for adverse
impacts on local and indigenous cultural values
(Graburn, 1976; Pizam, 1978; Anderson, 1990; Cohen,
1992; Hollinshead, 1992; Mathieson & Wall, 1982;
Picard, 1995). One result of the tension between these
opposing views is increasing pressure for originator-con-
trol of the use of cultural motifs (designs, scenes depicting
aspects of cultural history, etc) for tourism purposes.
Ownership of the rights to the intellectual and cultural
property embodied in such motifs is of fundamental
importance to the success of attempts to control the use
of indigenous cultural imagery in creative merchandising
(Janke, 1997; Ministry of Commerce, 1997).
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 0011-64-7-3468730; fax: 0011-64-7-
3468774.
q
The surveys reported in this paper were made possible by grants
from the Waiariki Polytechnic Research Committee and the USQ Sta!
Development Fund.
study forms a part, is exploring the communication of
Australasian cultural and environmental motifs to over-
seas tourists through the production and sale of souvenir
clothing. The intention is to assess the viability of niche
fashion markets aimed at tourist sales, and the ability of
the apparel industry to sustain these. The present paper
reports on the results of a sample survey of visitors
carried out in New Zealand during May}December
1997, from which 322 useable responses were obtained,
with respect to their purchases of apparel and the import-
ance of the authenticity of cultural motifs. The next stage
will see this survey replicated in Australia, and the study
extended to incorporate the views of the apparel and
souvenir industries in both countries with respect to such
niche markets.
The survey results provide some insights into the be-
haviour of visitors as consumers of cultural motifs in the
form of apparel. They reinforce the suggestion made by
several writers that there may be a niche market in the
production of designer textiles incorporating cultural
motifs for sale to tourists (Littrell, 1990; Healy, 1994).
Nevertheless, the development of such markets is prob-
lematical and one of the major problems appears to lie
in the &authenticity' of the cultural motifs themselves

0261-5177/00/$ - see front matter ( 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 2 6 1 - 5 1 7 7 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 0 6 1 - 8
308 M. Asplet, M. Cooper / Tourism Management 21 (2000) 307}312
(Littrell, 1990,1994a; Webster, 1997; Handszuh, 1992;
Blundell, 1993). It was important, therefore, to test the
likely impact of this factor by speci"cally concentrating
on the question of cultural authenticity and the di!ering
responses of tourists to this aspect of intellectual and
cultural property when applied to tourist oriented mer-
chandising. That is the theme of the present paper.
2. Issues in the use of tourist merchandise as a form
of cultural expression } the question of authenticity
The concept of culture has been debated in the anthro-
pological literature for over two centuries (Mathieson
& Wall, 1982). Broadly, culture is the way a people
express themselves } not only verbally, but also in dress,
lifestyle, beliefs and practices (Crocombe, 1983). Ritchie
and Zins (1978) on the other hand have de"ned cultural
tourism as `the consumption by tourists of features re-
sembling the culture of a societya. They identi"ed certain
elements of culture which attract tourists to particular
destinations. These were:
f Handicrafts;
f Language;
f Traditions;
f Gastronomy;
f The history of a region, including visual reminders;
f The types of work engaged in by residents and the
technology used;
f Architecture giving the area a distinctive appearance;
f Religion, including visible manifestations;
f Educational systems;
f Dress; and
f Leisure activities.
While `resemblancea need not include total accuracy
in production, it has often been observed that a belief in
authenticity lends tremendous weight and value to cul-
tural objects (Healy, 1994). The knowledge that a cultural
souvenir is locally handmade is also said to be an impor-
tant ingredient in establishing this authenticity } prod-
ucts made by local hands are &genuine'; mass-produced
commodities made elsewhere are in the realm of the
&plastic', a word connoting #imsiness, super"ciality,
#ashiness, or arti"ciality, whether in concept or material.
However, Cohen (1992) has observed that cultural prod-
ucts such as mass-produced handicrafts, for example
Javanese batik shirts, or the mass-produced Maori carv-
ings of Rotorua, that might at "rst seem contrived or
unauthentic might over time become recognised as auth-
entic. He referred to this process as &emergent authentic-
ity', and noted that such products may eventually be
accepted as authentic even by experts.
Underlying this debate is the undeniable di$culty for
many indigenous peoples that, when o!ered for sale in
retail outlets, their handicrafts, art and music are mar-
keted not primarily as representations of their culture, or
even as mementos of encounters between themselves
and tourists. Instead they are o!ered as keepsakes of
a Country, often as &authentic' souvenirs of that country
(Blundell, 1993; Zeppel, 1997,1998). Where this occurs
particular problems can arise from the practice of labell-
ing souvenirs with claims as to their origin, their original-
ity, and the materials/manufacturing processes employed
to produce them (their &authenticity'), without the in-
volvement of local indigenous groups. For example,
mass-produced items of local cultural signi"cance such
as the Tiki amulet of New Zealand may under these
circumstances have no connection with the country of
origin apart from the generalised shape of the design
(Thomas, 1995). Instead, they may be made from modern
materials instead of the traditional bone or jade material
(as in the case of the Tiki), and may at worst be made in
another country altogether. As a result, such claims can
mislead tourists as to the cultural involvement of the
inhabitants of the country being portrayed (King, 1994;
Aotearoa Maori Tourism Federation, 1996; Barnett,
1997; Dickson & Littrell, 1997). In an attempt to avoid
this situation the following criteria of authenticity have
been adopted by the Aotearoa Maori Tourism Feder-
ation. These are that the product or service is:
1. From the mind of a Maori;
2. By the hand of a Maori; and that
3. The producer or provider has a genealogical and
spiritual connection to a tupuna Maori.
It is against this background that the present paper
considers the importance of authenticity in the repres-
entation of cultural motifs in fashion apparel. The next
section discusses the methodology used and the results
obtained from a survey of tourists carried out in late
1997.
3. Methodology and results
Respondents were asked a range of questions covering
their apparel purchasing patterns, including their atti-
tudes towards authenticity of cultural motifs. The survey
was carried out in New Zealand over the period
May}December 1997 by means of an administered ques-
tionnaire to a convenience sample of tourists at selected
locations. The sample was drawn from travellers on the
long-distance passenger train services of New Zealand.
The concentration on this travelling medium was dic-
tated by the fact that these services are now extensively
marketed as tourist trains (Tranz Scenic). On the train
the visitor is con"ned for a time and therefore more likely
to welcome the diversion of a short questionnaire on
aspects of their current behaviour, and many tourists are
 M. Asplet, M. Cooper / Tourism Management 21 (2000) 307}312 309

now choosing these forms of travel over others to visit Table 1

various parts of New Zealand. The obvious drawbacks Major characteristics of the visitor sample (N"281)
would appear to be that not all tourists travel by train,
Characteristic Number % of respondents
and group tourists especially do not. Nevertheless,
a good spread of nationalities (175 respondents from Age 15}24 67 24
outside New Zealand) and types of visitors was gained in 25}34 61 22
this way (37 backpackers, 207 free independent travellers 35}44 43 15
(FIT) and 37 group travellers), with New Zealand resi- 45}54 39 14
55}64 37 13
dents (106 respondents) on holiday also able to be in- 65# 34 12
corporated. Japanese travellers made up the largest
group of international tourists, followed by those from Gender Male 105 37
Female 176 63
the United Kingdom, Australia and Europe. A total of 41
respondents did not indicate Country of Origin on their Origin New Zealand 106 38
returned questionnaire. Australia 25 9
USA/Canada 19 7
All passengers on each of the services between Auck- United Kingdom 39 14
land}Rotorua, Auckland}Wellington, Picton}Chris- Japan 41 15
tchurch, the Tranz Alpine service, and Christchurch} Other Asia 15 5
Dunedin were surveyed with the approval of Tranz Rail. Europe 29 10
From the 360 questionnaires distributed to adult passen- Other 7 2
gers by the research team, 322 responses were obtained Tourist type Backpacker! 37 13
and the characteristics of the respondents are detailed in Other FIT 207 74
Table 1. Given that the purchase and use of souvenir Group 37 13
clothing was thought likely to be gender and age based !Respondents staying in Backpacker accommodation; Respondents
and likely to be a!ected by whether or not the visitor was who did not answer these questions (n"41) have been discarded.
a free-independent traveller or in a group, respondents
were initially classi"ed by age/sex, country of origin, and
tourist type, (Anderson & Littrell, 1994; Mill, 1996).
While the sample was gender biased, with more female
than male respondents, a simple comparison of gender Table 2
Purchase of New Zealand made clothing!
with purchasing activity showed this did not a!ect the
decision to make tourist clothing purchases, both groups Response Number % of respondents
making a similar level of purchase (X2"1.4599, df (n"281)
1 (0.01 critical value 6.635)). The majority of respondents
were backpackers or other FIT travellers; group travel- Yes 182 66
No 99 35
lers making up only 13 per cent of the sample. Respon- No answer 41 13
dents were evenly spread across all age groups.
Table 2 shows that some 56 per cent of respondents If yes, was this clothing for:
Everyday/leisure wear 132 72
had made clothing purchases while on their present trip, Specialised (wet, cold weather gear, etc) 29 16
while 13 per cent did not answer this question. This may Evening/Formal wear 16 9
seem a low result, but purchases of clothing are generally Other 5 3
not a necessity when travelling away from home, being If no, was this due to:
instead bought for particular purposes and/or reasons of Lack of quality 4 4
cultural or personal signi"cance (Littrell, 1994b). Every- Choice available 9 9
day/leisurewear (72 per cent) made up the bulk of these Price 26 26
purchases, specialised wet/cold weather gear contributed Not interested 41 41
Other reason 11 11
16 per cent, evening/formal wear 9 per cent, and other No answer 8 8
clothing purchases 5 per cent. The majority of purchases
were t-shirts and sweaters. The fact then that visitors had Type and fabric of clothing purchased:
T-shirt, single ply weft knit 112 61
purchased New Zealand produced clothing is an impor- Sweater/jumper, polo#eece fabric 83 46
tant indicator of the general existence of a tourist market, Sweat shirts, polo#eece fabric 54 30
which might be manipulated to the bene"t of the fashion NZ Wool garment 55 30
apparel industry (Ryan & Saleh, 1993; Jansen-Verbeke, Leather/suede garment 28 15
1994). Other garment, fabric 37 20
Of the 99 respondents (31 per cent) who did not pur- ! More than one item of clothing may have been purchased, percent-
chase clothing, 41 per cent said that they were not inter- ages do not therefore add up to 100. Respondents who did not answer
ested but many of the remainder suggested that price these questions (41) have been discarded.
310 M. Asplet, M. Cooper / Tourism Management 21 (2000) 307}312
(26 per cent) and lack of choice and quality (13 per cent)
were signi"cant reasons for their decision. Purchasing
barriers of these types (including availability of smaller
sizes and of imagery unique to New Zealand) may indi-
cate that producers of these garments do not understand
the tourist market. Noticeably, much of the resistance to
purchase came from Japanese (only 48 per cent pur-
chased NZ produced clothing), United Kingdom (46 per
cent) and European (41 per cent) visitors, whereas New
Zealand-based (85 per cent), other Asian (67 per cent),
American and Canadian (63 per cent), and to a lesser
extent Australian (56 per cent) respondents were more
likely to purchase. Part of the reason for this pattern may
be that FIT travellers were much more likely to purchase
NZ produced clothing (69 per cent) than either back-
packers (50 per cent) or group tourists (54 per cent)
} Japanese tourists generally travel in groups and many
European visitors are backpackers.
Table 3 provides some insight into the importance to
tourists of depicting local motifs on clothing. New Zea-
land designs, ensuring that the purchaser buys a unique
product and covering both one-o! depictions of natural
scenes and activities, and unique cultural motifs, were
considered important by 38.5 per cent of all respondents,
while 25 per cent felt that this had no e!ect on their
decision to purchase, and 15 per cent did not consider
uniqueness to be important at all. Although these results
indicate that having unique New Zealand designs on
clothing was not very important overall, 68 per cent of
those who did purchase items of apparel considered this
factor to be important. In addition, just over 40 per cent
of those surveyed thought however that Maori designs
(stylised representations of gods, historical events, etc), or
depictions of events/people from that culture were appro-
priate themes for New Zealand apparel producers to
portray on clothing.
Within this pattern there was a signi"cant interest
in Maori culture-based designs amongst the 25}34
(33 per cent bought garments with such designs), 35}44
Table 3
Importance of New Zealand designs
Response Number of % of respondents
respondents (N"322)
Important 124 38.5
No e!ect 81 25.2
Not important 49 15.2
No answer 68 21.1
Type of design:
Maori design/culture 140 43.5
General NZ people/heritage 19 5.9
Other 4 1.2
No answer/comment 159 49.4
(26 per cent), and 45}54 (26 per cent) age groups of
respondents, while only an average of 18 per cent pur-
chased such garments in each of the older age groups.
These di!erences perhaps re#ect an increasing know-
ledge of and acceptance of Maori cultural designs
amongst younger visitors. Interestingly though, only
tourists from the United Kingdom (36 per cent) and
&other Asian' (40 per cent) origins showed any strong
tendency to buy Maori culture-based designs. Japanese
(12 per cent) and New Zealanders (18 per cent) showed
a strong tendency not to buy such culturally speci"c
items.
3.1. Authenticity and the depiction of cultural motifs
in cultural merchandising
These results re#ect the increasing importance of
Maori cultural motifs in New Zealand tourism and
brings us to the central concern of this paper; the ques-
tion of the cultural authenticity of New Zealand designs
on items of apparel. Ownership of the rights to the
intellectual and cultural property embodied in cultural
motifs is increasingly being shown to be of fundamental
importance to the success of attempts to control the use
of indigenous cultural imagery in creative merchandising
(Cohen, 1992; Blundell, 1993; Healy, 1994; Van Acker
& Craik, 1997). An important aspect of this, the question
of authenticity, can lead to particular problems with
respect to claims as to origin, originality, and the mater-
ials/manufacturing processes employed to produce the
motifs used.
The results of the visitor survey showed that authentic-
ity was important to 49 per cent of respondents when
purchasing an item of clothing (Table 4), and not imp-
ortant to 30 per cent. When asked if they would be
more inclined to purchase NZ clothing if authenticity
of design was included on the label, 46 per cent re-
sponded positively and 33 per cent said no. Further
examination of this response pattern showed that
there was no signi"cant di!erence by gender of re-
spondent in terms of the desire for authenticity, but there
was by country of origin, type of tourist, and if respon-
dents wished to purchase a culturally based item of
clothing.
Of those who purchased apparel items, 62 per cent of
New Zealand tourists, 64 per cent of Australians, and 80
per cent from `other Asiaa considered authenticity of
design/labelling showing authenticity to be very impor-
tant. However, those from the USA/Canada (47 per cent),
the United Kingdom (56 per cent) and Europe (55 per
cent) were not really concerned, and only 29 per cent of
Japanese visitors thought that these factors were impor-
tant. In a similar vein, FIT visitors thought that these
aspects of souvenir shopping were important, while back-
packers appeared not to care, and group travellers did
not think that they were important.
 M. Asplet, M. Cooper / Tourism Management 21 (2000) 307}312
Table 4
Authenticity of designs
Response Number of % of respondents
respondents (N"322)
Important 158 49.1
Not important 95 29.5
No answer 69 21.4
If there were a statement of authenticity on label, would you be more likely
to buy?:
Yes 149 46.3
No 106 32.9
No answer 68 20.8
As might be expected, if a speci"c cultural motif is
being purchased authenticity is considered very impor-
tant. The results show that 76 per cent of those re-
spondents who actually purchased apparel items wanted
authenticity or would buy if authenticity were guaran-
teed (by label) when considering purchases of New
Zealand designs on clothing, with 67 per cent desiring
this for purchases of Maori cultural designs. These
factors were even more important for those respondents
purchasing apparel depicting other NZ cultural or
sporting themes (82 per cent), and probably re#ects un-
certainty about what it is that is being depicted compared
with the perhaps more obvious Maori cultural design
motifs.
4. Conclusions
This research project is exploring the communication
of Australasian cultural motifs to overseas tourists
through the production and sale of designer apparel. The
intention is to assess the viability of niche fashion mar-
kets aimed at tourist sales, and the ability of the apparel
industry to sustain these. The survey carried out in New
Zealand and reported on in this paper has shown that
while only 56 per cent of tourists had bought New Zea-
land produced clothing, of these 68 per cent reported that
a New Zealand design was important to their decision to
purchase. Within this, over 40 per cent had purchased an
item of apparel with a Maori cultural design. The promo-
tion of the existence of such themes on di!erent types of
clothing should in theory therefore attract greater pur-
chases wherever such goods are available.
The survey also showed that authenticity of design
was important to nearly half the respondents when pur-
chasing an item of clothing, and many responded posit-
ively when asked if they would be more inclined to
purchase New Zealand made clothing if authenticity of
design was vouched for on the label. The desire for
authenticity, especially if it purports to depict a culturally
311
based design is therefore an important aspect of the
decision to buy tourist oriented clothing in the New
Zealand market. The implication of this for the produc-
tion and marketing of apparel is that the makers and
distributors of such items should be concerned to ensure
that authenticity is maintained and enhanced whenever
such claims are made, in conjunction with the owners of
the intellectual and cultural property that they are de-
rived from.
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