YFNCT executive director says the benefits of Indigenous tourism are "far reaching."
A new online bootcamp is aiming to help Indigenous tourism businesses improve their skills and take their passions and ideas to the next level.
The "Strengthening Indigenous Tourism: Business Bootcamp" is a partnership between the Yukon First Nations Culture and Tourism Association and Yukonstruct.
The 12-week program will be available to Indigenous tourism businesses in the early development phase. Participants will learn all about the tourism market, meeting demands, building a team, raising capital, and more.
“We have everything,” says Cat Kelly, the Director of Entrepreneurship Programming at Yukonstruct, “from understanding customer discovery, how you go out there and talk to people and bring people in. We’re binging in operators in the Yukon to tell their own story of how they started. Going through how to run a budget, how to balance a budget, to how to price your products. By the end of the program, we’re hoping the participants feel confident to start their own business.”
Kelly says they have put on business bootcamps in the past, but this is the first one that focuses on Indigenous tourism.
“There’s a real shift in tourism right now,” says Executive Director of the Yukon First Nations Culture and Tourism Association Charlene Alexander. They say the Yukon has potential to be a world class Indigenous tourism destination.
“People are looking for more intimate and meaningful experiences, like one on one with people. Less sort of, cruise ship packages.”
Alexander says tourism is a way for Indigenous people to show their culture and traditions to the world.
“Sharing their culture through tourism is a way of creating pride in community, it creates jobs, the benefits are far reaching and, in some cases, it even helps to preserve language, especially if young people are working in the tourism industry, they’re learning their language and sharing it with visitors.”
Alexander says they don’t’ plan to make this a one-off workshop.
Applications to participate close on August 24.
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