How Indigenous Communities Are Reclaiming the Travel Experience

It’s a sharp, blue-skied winter’s day in downtown Melbourne. The air is filled with the cheerful ding-dings of the city’s trams, and sunlight is glinting off the surface of the placid Yarra River. Stretching 150 miles from the forested slopes of the Yarra Ranges in the east through the heart of Melbourne, it’s often called the ‘upside-down river’, due to its muddy brown colour. But according to Blayden Field, a young Indigenous guide from the Gunaikurnai tribe of southeastern Victoria who I’m on a tour with, it wasn’t always like this. “Originally, the river was beautiful,” he says, as we stand beside it. “You could see right through the water, clear as day. You could see eels swimming and it would be used for bathing and ceremony.”

The river’s transformation came in the late 19th century, as Melbourne grew into the capital of the British colony of Victoria. It was dredged, blasted and straightened, transforming the living freshwater system into an engineered urban waterway, laced with tidal saltwater from nearby Port Phillip Bay and filled with fine clay and sediment particles.

Even the name ‘Yarra’, I discover, is not the original. To the Wurundjeri people, Traditional Owners of this part of Melbourne for millennia, the river is ‘Birrarung’. “It was an important part of Wurundjeri culture,” Field tells our huddled group of visitors. “A living, breathing thing. We cleaned it, kept it beautiful, and it brought us food and sustenance.” He shrugs and smiles at our gathering. “Like we say, you take care of Country, Country will take care of you.”

Field is a guide for the Koorie Heritage Trust, an Indigenous-led cultural organisation based amid the striking geometric architecture of Melbourne’s Federation Square. It’s one of many Indigenous-led groups giving travellers authentic perspectives on destinations — and part of a growing industry. According to the World Travel and Tourism Council, Indigenous tourism is projected to grow by around 4% annually over the next decade, reaching £49.5 billion worldwide by 2034.

Shifting the Balance

However, growth is only part of the story. Throughout the history of tourism, Indigenous cultures have been presented to visitors through dance performances, craft demonstrations and other cultural experiences, often owned and operated by outsiders, without communities receiving a fair share of the profits they generated. That balance has started to shift. First Nations people across the world are not just participating in tourism but increasingly taking ownership of it — creating businesses, managing destinations and controlling how their stories are told.

Many examples have begun to emerge. In southeast Alaska, the Tlingit communities of Hoonah and Klawock have developed Indigenous-owned cruise ports at Icy Strait Point and on Prince of Wales Island. In northern Quebec, Inuit groups now manage four national parks, from the ancient Pingualuit meteorite crater to the glacial valleys of Kuururjuaq. Bedouin entrepreneurs in Egypt are reimagining trekking tourism in the Sinai Peninsula. And in the Brazilian Amazon, a Munduruku guide has created the region’s first Indigenous-owned tour company, telling traditional stories of the rainforest.

In Australia, the best-known case of Indigenous tourism reclamation was the sandstone monolith of Uluru, which regained its original name after being returned to its Traditional Owners, the An_angu. When I catch up with Rob Hyatt, a Wotjobaluk/Gunaikurnai man and manager of cultural experiences at the Koorie Heritage Trust, he tells me, “The renaming of Uluru had a big impact in understanding. People realised, hold on a second, there’s an Aboriginal story here that needs to be told. Eventually, people understood the appropriate cultural observation, which was no longer climbing the rock. Tourism has provided the space for that genuine Aboriginal voice to come through, and it’s an example of what’s happening everywhere.”

For the Khwe San people of the Kalahari Desert in Namibia, language itself is being preserved through tourism, helping to fundamentally reclaim their community’s story. The Khwedam tongue has for decades been squeezed out by English-language schooling, migration and social stigma. Guides now greet visitors and share stories in the Khwedam language, and pass on knowledge that otherwise might be lost.

‘I felt insecure about speaking my language and feared being laughed at when I spoke in public,’ Kake Kinere wrote for Cultural Survival, an Indigenous NGO, earlier this year. But when Kinere helped found the Bwabwata Living Museum in Namibia’s Bwabwata National Park, everything changed.

‘I helped develop digital content for visitors, including posters introducing cultural practices and basic language phrases. Working closely with elders deepened my understanding of my heritage and I keep practising my language skills,’ she wrote. ‘Today, I proudly introduce myself in my own language and encourage other youth to see cultural knowledge as a strength.’

One of the world’s leaders in Indigenous travel is British Columbia in Canada, where Indigenous tourism businesses generate an estimated C$1.1 billion (£590 million) per year and support around 10,000 jobs. Visitors can engage with Indigenous-owned experiences like soaking in hot springs in the traditional lands of the Ahousaht Nation, staying in an off-grid ecolodge with Xeni Gwet’in hosts in the riverlands of the Nemaiah Valley, or sampling a flight of award-winning wines at Nk’Mip Cellars in Osoyoos, the first Indigenous-owned winery in North America.

Paula Amos, the chief marketing and development officer for Indigenous Tourism British Columbia — who’s of Hesquiaht and Squamish Nation descent — tells me she’s seen a huge shift in the past two decades. “I’ve watched Indigenous-owned tourism grow from a few experiences to now, where we have close to 500.”

The increase in experiences is matched by a growing enthusiasm among travellers. Research shows 31% of international visitors to British Columbia seek Indigenous activities. “A big part of this is that travellers are searching for a richer experience and deeper connection,” Amos says. “We have a saying, Hišuuk iš c’awaak. It means everything is connected — the animals, the water, the ocean, the mountains, other people. So sometimes I say, the gauge for success is if visitors get emotional when they hear stories about our connection to the land, being passed from grandmothers down to the youth. Because really we are all connected, in one way or another.”

Half a world away, in New Zealand’s North Island, Nadine ToeToe, a Māori entrepreneur of Ngāi Tai ancestry, speaks to me from deep in the Ngāti Manawa ancestral lands near Murupara. Murupara was once sustained by forestry, but the town was hit hard when the industry was mechanised in the late 1980s, wiping out local livelihoods. The years that followed brought deep socioeconomic decline and issues like substance abuse and a rise in gang culture.

For ToeToe, who’d spent decades working in the travel industry elsewhere in New Zealand, tourism offered a powerful way to bring opportunity back to this community. “We knew in our DNA and in our hearts that we had to harness tourism for good. We had to give back to our community. We had to share the benefits. We had to show people there was hope.”

After years of hard work, the result was Kohutapu Lodge, Nadine’s whānau- or family-owned retreat overlooking the waters of Lake Aniwhenua. Visitors can explore the ancient Whirinaki rainforest and sacred Māori sites, as well as learn about traditional crafts and native medicinal plants. But for the local community, the lodge means much more.

Leftovers from tourists’ traditional hāngī (earth oven) feasts are packed up and delivered to local children. The lodge buys school uniforms, runs training programmes and provides a place where younger generations can learn ceremonial traditions from Elders.

It’s an example of the economic difference ownership can make. Māori tourism contributed NZ$1.2 billion (£520 million) to New Zealand’s GDP in 2023, with around NZ$1 billion (£435 million) generated directly by Māori-owned businesses. In 2025, Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka described Māori tourism as “an increasingly formidable part of the engine driving our country’s economic growth”.

For ToeToe, tourism offers the opportunity for extraordinary mutual benefit, for visitors and the Indigenous communities that host them. “You get this beautiful experience,” she says. “But you also get to uplift our people and leave a positive footprint behind you. And our visitors are genuinely looking for that chance to give back, to know in their heads and hearts that they are leaving the place better than they found it.”

Five Indigenous-led Travel Experiences

Talaysay Tours, Canada

Take a 90-minute walk in Vancouver’s Stanley Park with an Indigenous Cultural Land Ambassador, learning about the culture of the Coast Salish peoples.

Maji Moto Maasai Cultural Camp, Kenya

In the Loita Plains, trek with guides from this Maasai-owned lodge to a sacred bush camp, where Elders share songs and stories.

Kapawi Ecolodge, Ecuador

Deep in the Amazon, this Achuar-owned rainforest lodge offers traditional wayus tea ceremonies and hikes with local guides to discover medicinal plants.

Sámi Reindeer, Sweden

Sleep in a traditional lávvu tent surrounded by reindeer and hear Sámi stories around the fire in Swedish Lapland — part of the Sámi homeland of Sápmi.

Kohutapu Lodge, New Zealand

Journey through Ngāti Manawa lands, hearing stories of ancestral battles and taniwha (spiritual guardians), and visiting ancient Māori rock carvings.