In the fiscal year 2021-22, the Indigenous Tourism Association of Canada (ITAC) continued to make great strides in returning the Indigenous tourism industry back to the historic results of 2019. Incremental gains and the dedication of a strong and strategic team allowed ITAC to continue to support its members by leveraging opportunities across the country.
The year saw ITAC engage in productive and collaborative partnership meetings to create the 2022-2025 Building Back Better – Reconciliation Through Indigenous Tourism strategy. ITAC signed important strategic MOUs with Parks Canada and Destination Canada, brought back an in-person National Indigenous Tourism Conference (NITC) with more than 300 delegates, balanced its budget and grew its membership across the country.
The focus for 2021-22 was to ensure Indigenous tourism businesses were well supported as travel starts to ramp up again. As key success indicators ITAC launched its new website, DestinationIndigenous.ca, secured several partnerships both domestically and internationally, increased engagement on social media platforms and overall increased their leadership in driving Indigenous tourism. ITAC’s marketing campaign, The Original Original, exceeded expectations, delivered an exceptional return on investment with over 260K direct leads to members, and out of 520 destination marketing organizations, it was recognized as the 7th best creative campaign in the world by Fast Company.