ITBC Launches ‘Our Story. Your Experience.’ Campaign
Indigenous Tourism BC (ITBC) has launched 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, explained that: “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 to positively affect individuals, the Indigenous communities, and the lands the Nations have resided on and cared for since before immemorial.
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.
Go to https://www.indigenousbc.com/ for more.
TOP Photo
Talaysay Tours
SECOND Photo
Weaver Carrie Anne Vanderhoop (K’iinuwaas) works to create traditional regalia
THIRD Photo
Cultural Tour with Haida Style Expeditions
Photos provided by Indigenous Tourism BC (ITBC)
