Indigenous Tourism is more than just education, it can allow Indigenous People to reclaim power over their land while maintaining culture and supporting the local community.
Tourism Australia is aiming to do this via Discover Aboriginal Experiences, a collective of hand-picked group of up-close and personal storytellers, who can give travellers an authentic array of tours, accommodations, and activities in every region across the country.
The collective was launched in 2018 and was seeing strong growth before the pandemic. The division hand-picks their partners, who must meet deliberately strict criteria to join. As Nicole Mitchell, Executive Officer explains, because all of their experiences are Aboriginal guided, it's the person who owns the storytelling and the story.
"It's very tailored. We have now more than 185 experiences to offer which are about connecting you with the country," Mitchell says. "We are a country of many cultures; we have 110 Indigenous languages spoken in Australia; we have a very diverse range of options to explore. You can be learning about culture on the back of a quad bike or kayak or doing a three day or one hour hike around Sydney. But in each of those experiences, it's the storytelling about the culture that connects you to the place you're in."
Phillipa Harrison, Managing Director, Tourism Australia, says Indigenous Tourism is a strong mandate for the board and one that's also very timely for Australians who are seeking to embrace their Indigenous culture.
"From an Australian point of view, there's a lot of reconciliation that needs to happen for us as a country, and it's a very topical issue now. We as a country, are currently going through a process where we're looking to amend our constitution, to give Indigenous people a voice in Parliament, which they feel they haven't had for a long time.
But from a purely tourism point of view, I think it's a completely unique proposition for somebody coming on a holiday that we have the oldest continuous culture on earth. It's an incredibly diverse culture, and it feels like a very real moment in time where it is very important to us to do this."
Matt Cameron-Smith, CEO of Voyages Indigenous Tourism Australia agrees, saying those offerings and responsibility are a big part of what they do. In addition to their company, Voyages also runs the National Indigenous Training Academy which teaches students careers in horticulture, retail, or hospitality.
"We are the largest single site employer of Indigenous people in Australia," Cameron-Smith tells TravelPulse Canada. "38% of our workforce is Indigenous, and make up 27% of our leadership. So it's a very important part of our value set.
We had over 600 graduates pass through the Academy. Young, Indigenous people who finish with a nationally recognized certification in the end and are guaranteed a job with us because we want to keep them in the industry."
All Indigenous offerings through Tourism Australia and Voyages are commissionable for travel agents.
"I think the Canadian traveller is a lot like an Aussie traveller," says Cameron-Smith. "They've been really intrepid; they like to have experiences. They're not just seekers, they're doers."
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