Indigenous Tourism BC Launches Our Story. Your Experience Campaign.

COAST SALISH TERRITORIES, May 25, 2023 – Indigenous Tourism BC (ITBC) launches the Our Story. Your Experience. campaign, inviting travellers to hear Indigenous stories firsthand, and stand and be changed as witnesses to Indigenous realities and perspectives in present-day British Columbia. There are more than 160 Indigenous-owned businesses in BC, including market-ready hotels, lodges and campsites, museums and cultural centres, wineries, golf courses, and guided wildlife tours – each offering a unique experience, all with stories rich in history and culture to share.

Chief Marketing and Development Officer, Paula Amos, says, “The campaign reflects an intentional shift in Indigenous tourism to foster shared values, mutual understanding, and cultural exchange through Indigenous-led storytelling and a new travel goal based in Indigenous culture for conscientious visitors: be a witness, not a spectator”. 

Multimedia tactics will encourage visitors to incorporate Indigenous experiences as part of their travel plans, and ultimately share their experiences and learnings with others. With this new campaign, ITBC highlights stories long told and held by Indigenous Peoples. 

The organization’s consumer brand tagline ‘Our Story. Your Experience.’ simplifies this message succinctly. For too long, stories about Indigenous Peoples were told by others,  while their own stories were hidden from the public and from each other. Sharing these stories strengthens  Indigenous connections to family, culture, and land, and spreads love and appreciation for Indigenous Peoples and Knowledge. Unique relationships with the land and worldviews are embedded in languages and stories, and passed down through generations. Indigenous stories reflect Indigenous values, including caring for the land and each other – and all of the reward and responsibility included. 

Every story needs a good listener, a witness. Travellers increasingly carry these same values as they look to visit, experience, and learn from other cultures. Conscious travel in Indigenous BC is more than a spectator sport. It is an exchange that can positively affect life and learning for Indigenous and non-Indigenous individuals, families, and communities.

The Our Story, Your Experience campaign will run for two years, beginning in May 2023, and be promoted  through a domestic television campaign on Global TV, as well as a radio campaign featured on CKNW from May to September, 2023. The campaign will see heavy paid promotion on Youtube and Meta from May 2023 until completion, extending audience reach to Northwest Pacific US.  

Indigenous Tourism BC honours Indigenous hosts and the humour, beauty, and wisdom they share as storytellers. ITBC also celebrates travellers who seek knowledge about Indigenous Peoples from Indigenous Peoples – visitors with open hearts and minds who help plant new seeds around the world by sharing their experiences of personal change as witnesses to #IndigenousBC. 

Media Inquiries:
Kaya Arai, Nine Point Agency, [email protected]
Sarah Abbas, Nine Point Agency, [email protected]