The NT Aboriginal Cultural Tourism Framework has been awarded the prestigious Planning with Country Award for Excellence! This recognition celebrates the outstanding collaboration between TRC Tourism, Ayal Aboriginal Tours Kakadu, Coolamon Creative, ICTV (Indigenous Community Television), the Department of Tourism and Hospitality – Tourism NT, and the NT Aboriginal Tourism Committee.

We are incredibly grateful to the Planning Institute of Australia and award sponsors Cunnington Rosse Town Planning and Consulting for recognising the significance of our project, which has been a testament to the power of partnership and community-driven solutions. The success of the Framework reflects TRC Tourism’s core values of trust, respect and collaboration.

The project began with the NT Aboriginal Tourism Committee’s vision to create culturally appropriate resources and tools that empower Aboriginal Territorians to share and lead their own tourism stories. Tourism NT and the Department of Tourism and Hospitality fully supported and championed this initiative, ensuring its success.

‘Tourism gives you the benefit of working back on your Country, you don’t need to go elsewhere to do it. You can do it there. This is unique and different, it’s yours and you are the only one who can do this.’

– Victor Cooper, project partner.

 

To support ‘right way’ cultural tourism that balances ‘Cultural Way’ with ‘Business Way’, the Framework required an innovative collaboration, with each partner contributing their expertise and passion:

  • TRC Tourism as the project manager, led by NT based Senior Consultant Tracey Diddams
  • Victor Cooper of Ayal Aboriginal Tours Kakadu, a long-term cultural mentor and tourism leader co-designed cultural way and business way Framework concepts
  • Coolamon Creative, First Nations graphic designers and illustrators, visualised our concepts and brought the Framework to life
  • Indigenous Community Television (ICTV) created a promotional animation to generate awareness of the Framework, which will be broadcast to hundreds of communities and homelands across the Northern Territory.

‘It’s a big difference to starting up a cultural tourism business. When I started my business, it would have been much better if I’d had this Framework instead of trying to find all the information myself. These booklets show you the steps, who to get in touch with straight away to point you in the right direction and know what the next stage is from there. The Framework is a tool for us to all work together and support each other – cultural tourism grows, the economy grows and we all benefit.’ 

– Victor Cooper, project partner.

It was wonderful to receive recognition from the new Northern Territory Minister for Tourism and Hospitality Marie-Clare Boothby MLA who acknowledged at the award ceremony ‘Rebuilding the economy will take many Territorians to work together and it’s wonderful to know we have the talent to make it so.’

Congratulations and thank you to all our project partners and friends for walking together and working together on this meaningful journey. We are excited about the next phase as the rollout of the Framework begins.

‘This was a journey where we all got together in the canoe, we are paddling together in the one river to finish this journey together.’

– Project partner and First Nations tourism consultant Victor Cooper, Director Ayal Aboriginal Tours Kakadu.