November 26, 2019
Northwest Territories (NWT) representatives joined over 700 delegates at an International Indigenous Tourism Conference last week in Kelowna, BC.
The Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment’s Douglas Dillon, Indigenous Tourism Development Officer, and Max Rossouw, Tourism Development Officer for ITI’s North Slave Region, participated in the three-day conference to learn how the NWT can enhance and better support Indigenous tourism experiences.
The Department is seeking ways to grow the tourism sector across all of the NWT’s five regions.
“We gained valuable insight into how small Indigenous communities and individuals are blazing their own trails in the tourism industry,” Rossouw said. “There were lots of discussions on market and trade-ready standards; methods/tools to help businesses achieve that standard; and how education and training in Indigenous tourism is being developed and implemented throughout Canada.”
“We came away very motivated to foster this growing sector of tourism. Visitors may be coming for the aurora, but they are looking for cultural activities once they arrive and those transformative experiences stay with them long after they return home,” Dillon noted.
Photo: Joe Bailey of North Star Adventures, Douglas Dillon and Max Rossouw (left to right)
Some shining moments included a 700-person standing ovation to NWT musical duo PIQSIQ after their first song, and the election of Joe Bailey (North Star Adventures) to the ITAC Board of Directors as the NWT’s representative (replacing Kylik Kisoun Taylor).
Photo: Tiffany Kuliktana Ayalik and Kayley Inuksuk Mackay of PIQSIQ perform during the International Indigenous Tourism Conference
In the last four years, the number of tourism operators offering Indigenous cultural tourism in the NWT has increased by nearly 94% so it comes as no surprise that the NWT is playing a larger part on the national and international stage.
Related Stories:
New Partnership Advances Indigenous Cultural Tourism in the NWT
This year’s theme was “Inspire. Transform. Unite. Accelerating Indigenous tourism growth.”
With such a wealth of transformative cultural experiences available, the NWT is poised to do just that.
