The Klahoose Wilderness Resort  has partnered with the Indigenous Tourism Association of Canada (ITAC) to support the newly launched Indigenous Tourism Destination Fund. 

“There’s 800 new Indigenous tourism businesses that this strategy is going to support. Those are new ones. I think there’s 300 now that are like Klahoose Wilderness Resort across the country.  Most of them are small businesses like ours,”  explained Chris Tait, Tourism manager for the Klahoose Wilderness Resort.

“We’re part of the original accreditation program with the Indigenous Tourism Association of Canada, where they recognize Indigenous tourism businesses. There’s three levels. You have to  meet a whole bunch of criteria, like: have a business plan; a marketing plan;  work with international visitors;  be an Indigenous owned business; and have an Indigenous experience.”

“The other businesses in the program are much larger non-Indigenous businesses. WestJet, Rocky Mountaineer, Airbnb are three big examples. They’re going to contribute quite a bit of money.” 

“Klahoose Wilderness Resort is going to contribute a small amount. We’re a very little Indigenous resort, we only have seven rooms and cabins, but for us, supporting the Indigenous Tourism Association of Canada is really important. The whole purpose of that fund is Indigenous reconciliation and making sure that it’s Indigenous first as a business.” 

The immediate goal is to raise $2.6 billion for Indigenous tourism over the next seven years. They hope to build it into a $6 billion a year industry by 2030.

Chris Tait: “That fund will go back to help those  original tourism businesses, which are some of the best businesses across Canada.  It’ll help support them in their marketing and their training, but it’ll also help support bringing up a lot of those newer businesses,  or just businesses  that aren’t 100 percent market ready.  Maybe they need more training,  whether it’s Indigenous specific training or tourism and hospitality training.  Those are just examples, but it would help support business development.

“It’s an ‘opt in’, customers can choose to do it or not and it’s only $10. So it’s not a big fee.” 

“The Klahoose Wilderness Resort will collect the funds from our guests and then it will go towards this larger pot.”

“One of the purposes is to educate people. Let’s give them a way to learn about reconciliation in a fun way. They’re still coming on vacation to enjoy the beautiful scenery, see grizzly bears and humpback whales, but within that, they’re going to have those Indigenous guides with them. We have specific cultural sharing that we do in the evenings around a fire in the main lodge. That often starts getting into, ‘what about reconciliation’ and sometimes  subjects like residential schools. We try to keep it light, but it’s part of sharing.” 

“Guests can now contribute to this fee and then read ‘what is this little fee for?’”  

“It shines a light on Indigenous tourism across Canada.”

“What is Indigenous tourism? It’s very different in every community. It’s very different in every nation, very different across the country, but there’s a lot of similarities.”

“Let’s do what we can to help each other out, support each other, help raise Indigenous businesses up so we can all be successful.”

“Canada is one of the top places in the world to experience Indigenous tourism on a very high level.”   

“People are seeking that. It’s the right place,and right time for those kinds of things.”

“This fund will help support that.” 

Top image credit: Porch of the Klahoose Wilderness Resort – submitted photo

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