G Adventures has teamed up with other socially conscious operators to release a set of comprehensive guidelines that will better protect indigenous people and their lands from the harms of tourism.
Unveiled last week alongside The George Washington University and the Planeterra Foundation, the new ‘roadmap’ to indigenous tourism was designed to educate travel companies that work or intend to work with Indigenous people, while helping communities more directly benefit from responsible and culturally sensitive tourism.
G Adventures’ Vice President of Social Enterprise and Sustainability, Jamie Sweeting, said the guidelines were necessary in order to governments and businesses from prioritising growth and profits over respect for Indigenous people.
“Their ancestral lands, traditional culture and legacies have been threatened, and in many cases undermined, by the impatient pursuit of profit.”
Jamie Sweeting, G Adventures Vice President of Social Enterprise & Sustainability
“As more travellers seek immersive, experiential, off-the-beaten path holidays, I regret to say that the tourism sector has also contributed to this problem.
“We have an opportunity to rewrite that story; to lead from within, and make tourism a greater force for Indigenous well-being.”
The 23-page PDF is available as a learning tool for anyone working in travel and tourism and features 17 guidelines on indigenous tourism divided into: developing tourism experiences, operating tourism experiences and marketing tourism experiences.
Executive Director for The International Institute of Tourism Studies, Seleni Matus, said she’s confident the new tool will facilitate a mutually beneficial relationship between tourism and indigenous people, while G Adventures’ Founder, Bruce Poon Tip, believes it’ll allow the industry to “do more help than harm for these people”.
“It will be a sea change in in our industry.”
Bruce Poon Tip, G Adventures Founder & Owner
Click here to download the PDF.
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