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Traveling Back to the Future: Indigenous Tourism’s Rise

  • Writer: horizonshiftlab
    horizonshiftlab
  • 2 days ago
  • 16 min read
Men in colorful headdresses and painted tribal patterns play hand drums in a festive street parade, exuding a vibrant, energetic mood.
Image Source: el jusuf via pexels.com

What if your next trip was more than sightseeing — what if it reconnected you to land, language, and lineage? In this episode of Signal Shift, Raakhee and Sue explore the rise of Indigenous tourism: a $44B and growing movement that blends authentic cultural experiences with sustainability and meaning. From recently developed seals of authenticity like “Original Original,” to Indigenous-led food, wellness, and language revival, they uncover how travel is being redefined — and why your future journeys might just take you back to your roots.





Image Credits (for Video):

  • Anchorage Park Foundation, “Indigenous Place Names Project.” link


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Episode Transcript:


Raakhee: (00:00)

Hello and welcome to Signal Shift with me, Raakhee and Sue. Post both our summer travels, we wanted to focus our September episodes on travel and tourism. And last week we went into some of the innovations in this realm. Today we want to go back to the past rather than the future, because the past actually really informs the future.


And, you know, the past informs everything in essence, right? Who we are. where we come from, ⁓ and the respect and the recognition and the honoring of that in how we live and how we travel today and tomorrow. ⁓ Indigenous travel, also called cultural tourism or ethno-tourism, is the opportunity to learn about Indigenous cultures and communities in a manner that has to be economically beneficial for these communities, sustainable, right, leave no trace, and respectful of the heritage of the people. It's not a ticket to an adventure ride at Disney, right?


So if done the right way, it can be really beautiful, really beneficial and really transformative for both the visitor and the visited. Indigenous tourism is actually growing. In 2024, the market was about 44.86 billion US dollars. One study forecast that you're looking at a compound annual growth rate of 4.10%. And so 2034, the market value will actually be 67.05 billion.


Indigenous tourism is growing at about 4 % annually. It's a trend that also includes restaurants serving indigenous food, hotels and casinos owned by indigenous people, new museums, new types of immersive experiences, and of course, guided tours. People are ultimately looking for meaning, for depth, and for something different, right?


Not many people want to see the Eiffel Tower more than once in their lifetime. So what else do we explore out there that has meaning as well? So today let's talk about Indigenous tourism. Sue, I'm excited to see what signals you have in this realm or what is brought up for you, made you think about.


Sue: (02:12)

Thanks, Raakhee. First of all, I think it's so funny that every time we have an example of a more traditional tourism, we always reference Paris or the Eiffel Tower. We've got to start picking some other cities as well, but I just thought that was funny. Yeah, I think we both saw similar reports on the growth rate of Indigenous tourism. And I saw a lot of mainstream news outlets talking and reporting on it in indigenous tourism.


And so I said, okay, well, if they're reporting on it, it's really a thing now. And so that immediately got me a little worried, right? Because when there's more money to be made, then you sort of don't know, is this really the authentic experience that you want? And some of the purpose of indigenous travel is really to support indigenous communities. And so with the burgeoning market,

well, is there like, I don't know, some kind of stamp of approval or authenticity, I think is what I was looking for.


You know, I guess more like sustainable businesses have maybe the B Corp designation, something like that. And I was surprised to find that very recently, there have been the development of some of these labels. So in Canada, there is this kind of seal that's called the original original. If you think of what is indigenous, some are saying the meaning is really about being the original. And so they're the original original. And now it's become a program with the Indigenous Tourism Association of Canada. So you can actually apply to get one of these designations, which will help yourself in just being promoted more as kind of an authentic experience for travelers. And it'll be another way for travelers to find kind of the right experience they're really looking for from indigenous ownership and what kind of, whether it's ⁓ sustainable food or adventure tourism, what they might want to do.


And so there are a couple of these associations now that are starting to generate kind of their own seal of approval. And last year, the International Indigenous Tourism Conference actually announced that there is going to be a worldwide marketing effort. It's called DO-IT. What does it stand for? It stands for the Destination Original International Tourism And so they're all about promoting really these authentic operators and experiences. And so they've all come together to create kind of some values that you need to kind of abide by.


And what's great is it's a global effort. So three organizations came together to do it. It's ⁓ the Indigenous Association from Canada, the American Indian Alaska Native Tourism Association, and the New Zealand Maori Tourism Association. And they did it in partnership with UN Tourism as well, who's trying to do a global effort around really lifting this up. So I thought, if I can go on a trip like this, this is at least somewhere I can start because otherwise it gets really complicated. And at least for me, it gets very overwhelming very quickly. And so it made me feel better like, okay, this market is now at this place where, okay, we're getting more kind of designations, just kind of seals of approval, but at least as a start somewhere.


Raakhee: (05:33)

it's such a great find, That really excites me and I think is such good information for everybody to know. Yeah, I wasn't aware that so much work had been done and it had gone so much deeper. And one of the things that I wanted to pose to people this week was to say,


If you are going to go on one of these trips, make sure that you kind of trace back where the money's going and who it's benefiting. But that's not easy for the average person to do. It takes a lot of hard work to do that. So it's a tall ask. So this is amazing. sounds, ⁓ yeah, that's exciting. And it just shows where all of this is going.


I'll say this week, it wasn't an easy one to find signals on for sure. And I think it came around to, for me as well, of two, two sort of signals that I'm seeing that I've put together with some of the experiences that I've had. And the first one for me was ⁓ this connection with nature that I think only indigenous tourism is going to offer in a certain sense or a certain type of experience. We're not going to get anywhere else. So kind of calling that out and saying, hey, I think we're going to see that in the future.


We all, I think, recognize that we need to reconnect and build a relationship to the land. We've absolutely lost that as a modern society. And, you know, we see that with ⁓ both the impacts of climate, but our own health and so many things. ⁓ But we need guides and elders to do this. It's not something that we can easily get here. But, you know, I think looking at indigenous cultures, it's so abundant and there's so much to be ⁓ learned from these cultures. think...we'll see a form of ⁓ an aspect of the tourism that's about connecting with nature that I think Indigenous tourism is going to offer.


I will share and remind me of a trip that my husband and I took almost a decade ago. We went out to Alaska to see the Northern Lights and we went up to the Arctic Circle and beyond. we saw the Northern Lights in a very small ⁓ Indigenous village, really a native village. And there was an elder there. The trip wasn't organized through him. It was through a tour group, but it was very small. It was extremely rural, no hospitals. There's nothing for an hour, two hours. It was one of my best travel experiences. there weren't buildings in sight. I think we all are craving that. And I think the way to have that is respectfully through indigenous tourism. We did get to see the Northern Lights. It was just unbelievable. It was unbelievable.


And I think with Gen Z as well, who are very much value purchaser's, unlike millennials, I think it's going to be a big thing for them, right? And saying, where am I spending my money? Who does it go to? also reminded me of, spoke to a culinary anthropologist in the book that I'm doing. And we did a whole chapter on this, you know, and with her, what is really important was the decolonization of our palates and coming back to how people authentically ate.


And I think that's a part of this connection, but these recipes and the food, and not just the food, but the healing recipes as well. know wellness is another burgeoning sector. So I think there's an element of wellness here as well, I will say that in Indian culture, we've preserved that pretty well.


Having said that, think it's very easy to lose that within just a generation. So it's critical to keep that. Indigenous communities make up about 5 % of the world population. But they're really credited with protecting a lot of the Earth's biodiversity in the forests, in the deserts, in the grasslands, the marine environments. They've lived there for centuries, right?


Play a really critical role in very critical environments that we don't even realize. There's like a balance being maintained on Earth. And in this 5 % of population plays a really critical role in that.


I think we're going to see more collaborations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities, but in a respectful way of saying, we want to help your communities, we want to do this the right way, show us how.


Sue: (09:25)

That's a really great point. And I think I saw something, yes, on the other side of it is if there's too much demand for a certain place. ⁓ There was a particular lake, for example, that was being mentioned in Latin America. And they said, it's just full of detritus now. So how can you make sure that there are these partnerships that really safeguard and protect the resources that you have?


Yeah, your point around just how easy it is to lose some of these practices kind of gets into this next signal that I found, which was ⁓ it started in the idea of Indigenous language.


and just a lot of languages that are also projected to go away by the end of the century. I think, you know, this is something like there are like 6,000 or 7,000 languages that are really slated to disappear. And now there are all these apps, right, that are preserving indigenous language, there's using AI to be able to connect back to some of these languages. So I think there's some hope there.


And related to that, I found that in Australia, actually, Apple Maps made an announcement that they are adding more than 250 Indigenous place names in Australia. And they're going to be filtered to other apps, like Weather. think Quantus mentioned there's some integration. So it's going to start appearing more and more. And I just thought having Indigenous names on them, like having your name, a place name, is so huge. And we know that it's fraught with politics and just so many ways, so many different conflicts that can be related to that. So in this case, Apple consulted with Indigenous cartographers, language groups, traditional owners, IP experts, and it took them over four years for this project. But I think it's exciting because it talks about how tech is being integrated with Indigenous practices so that more and more people can recognize it every day.


And when you do that, it becomes part of your subconscious. You're aware of it more. And I thought, you know, how important is that when you're looking for a place to travel to, now you're seeing what the Indigenous place name is. And that might spark some more curiosity about where it is that you're going. What is the history there? Who are the people behind this? You know, what are some of those practices? maybe I should go find an eatery that has more Indigenous practice, ⁓ Indigenous family ownership, for example.


And so I thought that was a really just surprising announcement. ⁓ And I thought similarly, you what a way to lift up language in that way. So in certain ways, hopefully it won't get lost and it'll be preserved more and more. And so for me, I travel is the spark, but how else can we be uplifting communities in this way?


Raakhee: (12:15)

Yeah, absolutely. Words are so important. Language is so important. ⁓ Yeah, I think that's so critical. I was thinking about ⁓ New Zealand, you know, as you were speaking, and what a great example they have shown to the world in that, you know, anyone you speak to now knows that it's New Zealand, slash, Aotearoa, right? That that's...


You know, it's been they as a country have done a great job of doing that and saying this is who we are. And the world has to, you know, start to recognize that. So I think place names are so critical and help to your point, like they help in re-embed that language again


I just I recalled this. I thought this was really interesting statistics in a positive sense. And you spoke about the Alaska Native Tourism Association, So according to the latest data, this I got from National Geographic. This is from the American Indian and the Alaska Native Tourism Association. The three years between 2017 and 2020.


So a 230 % increase in American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian owned tourism firms. So it's a really positive thing speaking to everything we have been in, where the money's going and who's going to benefit and where those tourism companies are coming from. But yeah, so we've spoken about language, seals of approval, reconnection to land. And I think the second one for me is we're to be craving a connection with self. ⁓ And what that is, is a search for meaning and a search for a way of life. We've already sort of seen it.


We've seen it with ancestry.com and DNA testing. Everybody wants to know, Where do I come from? What makes up my past, my legacy? Who are my people? Who are my many people, maybe? But I think we're going to move beyond DNA ancestry. I think we've done that kind scientific part of it, because that's just literally, OK, that's the first step. I think we're going to have a call to go deeper beyond that.


And really to understand us, understand ourselves better and who we are. And I think people are going to also, in terms of indigenous tourism, I think a lot of it's gonna be about people going back to their roots. So whether it's going back to certain places in China and saying, where did my ancestors come from? Trace back the language like you're saying, Sue. Trace back the food, which we know is so important to us as a culture. And I'm going back to our roots. I think it's gonna be a really big and important theme. And I think we'll see technology play a role in this because we're going to have, ⁓ and we spoke a little bit about this last week, I think, where you were signaled to with travel planning with AI. But what we are going to see from that is hyper-personalization.


There's going to be so much data about us that already is out there that AI is going to have, from our biology, our mood swings, to who we are, to those DNA results, that it's going to literally give us these hyper-personalized suggestions for the things we crave. And I think a part of that hyper-personalization will be like, hey, you actually come four generations down from this particular village. These are the languages. They make this unique dish. Go and learn about it here. And I think that'll help us ⁓ to fanciate trips to your point about all of us not flocking to the same place for the same experience. Where we come from is very different for all of us. And I think that'll be this unique experience that we can all have.


There's this really cool show that came out this year. It's called No Taste Like Home. It's a travel show. It's with Anthony from The Queer Eye. And it's really, really good. He actually traces back a celebrity's lineage and takes them back. It was like he did Florence Pugh he went back so far and taught us so much about a family tree. But then he spoke about the food and the dishes they made in that time.


And that was really interesting. It was also interesting to see the careers that people in that line have done and what people are doing now and how much we are like our ancestors, whether we like to acknowledge it or not, right? It carries through. And I it was a very nice ⁓ show that speaks to, think, what we're to be calling for more and more over time and where we're going to go with this. So, ⁓ yeah, I think that was really cool.


And the other thing I thought about based on the things we spoke about, last week is that the International Day of the World's Indigenous People is actually the 9th of August. And I was thinking about what you were saying about peak seasons and off-peak seasons, and just thinking about, you know, maybe New Year's stops being the most important day 10 or 15 years from now, and maybe it's the Day of the World's Indigenous People that becomes the biggest celebration of the year, you know, a decade from now. So it's going to be really interesting to see what comes forth.


Sue: (17:08)

That's a very provocative vision, Raakhee. But as you're talking about, know, did that episode on global migration a while back, right? And as more of the world's populations continue to migrate, having these stories and the connection back to community wherever you're from is going to be so important. So something like that might become, you know, something to really honor and recognize your heritage may become a really, really important holiday more into the future. yeah, that's really interesting. I just had this kind of a black mirror thought maybe. ⁓ Again, integrating all of our conversations around AI. You go to some of the old historical museums and they'll have maybe like a period actor or actress talking about the day. But now with so much of that information, with your AI companion bot with you, they can recreate some of that ancestry going back who can be now your tour guide for a certain village or area that you want to go back to because you know your family was there four generations ago or something like that. I mean, that's probably where we might get to, which is a little scary.


Raakhee: (18:20)

Yeah. so, you know, knowing me, I'm a little scared. I'm excited by what you said. I'm like, oh, that's awesome. I would love to see like, you know, a hologram of an ancestor from a long time ago in like a museum, right. And they are talking me through this place. I mean, it's a little scary, but it excites me a lot as well.


I thought your signals were fantastic and kudos on getting signals on this, apart from the fact that it's ⁓ growing in tourism. It's not the easiest ⁓ topic to find signals on. So thought those were really great signals.


Sue: (18:50)

Yeah, I thought it was really hard to find things beyond particular stories. And I think the key for me as this grows is the infrastructure behind it. Who creates it as well is really important. But my own personal goal when I went into this was saying they're not ⁓ officially recognized as an indigenous community, but there's the Hena culture in Jeju Island in Korea. It's like the divers, the women divers.


And they're recognized more as kind of a cultural heritage around fishing. But I thought, just to go there and be immersed with them and learn from them, try to dive, you know, all of those things, it's there, but it's just in fragments. Again, with the language, there's a big language barrier if you don't speak Korean, how to get access and things like that.


And I thought, this is a place that could use a little bit more infrastructure and ways that could benefit them more as a community. yeah, how do you develop infrastructure for so many of the communities who don't have things like these seals of approval or these governmental bodies already trying to partner with them more? So that's something I hope we'll see in the future.


Raakhee: (19:59)

I was just thinking about things that I really want to do or places I really want to see what would be important to me. And I think, definitely going back to ancestral roots. And I was really lucky in that growing up, I did get to go to the village. from a place called Gujarat within India.


And so we did go to the village when we were little kids. But I'm so curious to know so much deeper now, so much deeper, right? Like who traveled from where to get there and go a couple of generations back.


But this is another one I found out about a place in Wyoming where you can also get to see the wild horses that is respectfully done. It's actually indigenous tourism. I will definitely say go to our site and look at the data we have there. We link all the articles and extra things like this. So I will put up this article that has a list of really great places to think about when it comes to indigenous tourism. So you may want to check that out. Thank you so much for being here and please like, subscribe and let us know what you think and let us know which topics you want to hear about. So until next time, bye for now.

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