Great expectations : making a city of literature

Melbourne claims to be the centre of the Australian arts. Certainly the industry is crucial to the city’s economy and is a huge draw for visitors. According to Arts Victoria figures, there were more than 1 million international visitors to Victoria in 2011, many of them passing through the state’s capital. Of these 1 million visitors, 60 per cent cited cultural motivations for their visit. The domestic market is equally enthusiastic about the city’s reputation for the arts. National surveys indicate that Australians view Melbourne as the country’s ‘cultural capital city’, a title earned thanks to the city’s many annual large-scale cultural events and arts festivals, its many established and innovative galleries, theatres and concert venues, and the ever-increasing number of bars, cafés and boutique spaces.