Travel Manitoba and Aboriginal Tourism Association of Canada agree to grow province's Indigenous tourism

Travel Manitoba is partnering with the Aboriginal Tourism Association of Canada (ATAC) in a joint effort to grow the province's Indigenous tourism sector over the next three years.

It's an industry that ATAC president and CEO Keith Henry has previously said contributes roughly $74 million a year to the province's GDP, and the hope is the new agreement will provide a pathway to expanding the sector even further in Manitoba.

"These are big steps within Manitoba. We're seeing visitor demand across the country in this industry in ways that we'd have never imagined 10 years ago," said Henry at the a signing of a memorandum of understanding between the two groups Tuesday in Winnipeg. "We believe Manitoba has such a strong Indigenous culture — strong First Nations, Metis, and various urban Aboriginal organizations — that we think there's great building blocks for us to market to the world." 

With a three-year funding commitment of $350,000, Henry called the MOU — the third such agreement signed between the ATAC and a Canadian province or territory — the most aggressive the national not-for-profit organization has signed to date.

The Manitoba MOU is based on the objectives of ATAC's national five-year strategic plan which include building leadership capacity, supporting the development of existing and new Aboriginal tourism experiences, building an Indigenous marketing platform, and advancing partnerships to help grow the Indigenous tourism industry.

Henry says here in Manitoba the plan will first see regional engagements hosted across the province over the next two months to both raise awareness about the resources available to entrepreneurs and to do research and gather information on what's happening already.

The next steps, he said, will see an Indigenous Tourism Advisory Committee set up to provide advice in the delivery of the work outlined in the MOU, and the creation of a new Manitoba Indigenous Tourism Strategy and a founding business plan for the Manitoba Aboriginal Tourism Association, expected to be operating with the next year.

The hope is to be able to host a Manitoba Indigenous Tourism Summit alongside next year's Manito Ahbee Festival, which will be in part used to provide a progress report back on the ATAC's national Indigenous tourism strategy.

"Our work at ATAC is to develop relationships with other groups in order to support, promote and market authentic indigenous cultural tourism businesses in a respectful protocol," said ATAC chair, Robert Bernard. "Manitoba is an integral part of a thriving Indigenous tourism economy, and we are so pleased to have this partnership in place."

Travel Manitoba's board chair Stuart Murray said the Calls to Action contained in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report will be considered by Travel Manitoba and the province of Manitoba as the province works to implement an Indigenous tourism growth strategy going forward.

"We understand that there is a great opportunity to grow Indigenous tourism in Manitoba, to attract visitors with an authentic experience that is rooted in history, rooted in culture and rooted in pride," said Murray. "As the tourism marketing agency for the province of Manitoba, Travel Manitoba will be one of the leaders in telling the Indigenous story of Manitoba to the world."

Henry said there are already roughly 60 businesses that are at some level of development in Manitoba's Indigenous tourism industry.

"We have a lot of work ahead of us, though, in terms of enhancing our market-readiness both for visitors from within Canada and internationally," he said. "This MOU is a signal of our way to do that in the long term."