 So, just to set the stage, I'm going to lay down a couple of observations that we've made and then we'll try and prove our points to you folks. First off is that tourism is a gateway for Aboriginal entry into the world of business and that means that because tourism is a relatively low barrier, low capital kind of business, folks who are not experienced in business can get into it and start to learn what they're doing. So it gives them a chance to get into business and start to understand how things work and then move on to other lines of business. Another important point is that in today's world, Aboriginal culture is hot. It's very much in demand. Surveys of incoming visitors have told us that Aboriginal culture is one of the most important things that they want to see when they come to visit British Columbia. And finally, these Aboriginal communities, these Aboriginal people own and control many of the really important key resources that are of importance to tourism, the places and the culture, the kinds of things that people want to get to. Things like waterfront properties, beaches, trails, scenic areas, and they also in terms of business development have access to different kinds of supports that are available to the standard business community and sometimes by working partnerships together. There's a lot that can be gained by Aboriginal folks and non-Aboriginal folks working together. Okay, there's a lot to be gained, but how do we do it? Well, first to tell us a little bit about how important tourism is and why we should use tourism as one of our gateways for economic development, we'll ask Walt Judas to explain a little bit about the Aboriginal tourism industry. Thanks, Walt. I'm just going to flip screen control over to you now so we can look at your PowerPoint deck. Perfect. Thanks very much, Bruce. And good afternoon, everyone. I'm just going to pull up this slide deck here that has a lot of tourism stats and some context on the Aboriginal tourism sector as well as an overview of what this tour is and what it represents, the profile of the Aboriginal tourism visitor, and then a bit about the Aboriginal tourism opportunity in the province. So let me first of all start with the overall BC tourism landscape which is represented by about 19,000. It's a little more than that, but small businesses spread throughout all regions of the province. There are 270,000 plus employees that work for tourism businesses in BC, about half of whom directly service the visitor economy, meaning there would not be that many employees if there were not any visitors that frequented these businesses. The industry is growing. It's growing rapidly and it's the combination of people retiring from working in the tourism industry to new businesses being created to young people wanting to enter the business. You can see here the stat, there's a projected 100,000 new workers that will be needed within the tourism industry in British Columbia by the year 2020, so there's plenty of opportunity there. Recently I was in a meeting with Minister Shirley Bond who has tourism as part of her portfolio and she suggested that between film, high-tech and tourism they were BC's strongest performers in 2015 where not for those three business sectors we would have struggled in the province to be sure. The visitor economy is larger than agriculture and forestry and continues to grow and to look at some of the stats over the past couple of years, in particular this past year, a record 5 million international overnight visitors in all parts of the province. You can see here some of the statistics, most notably is an increase in US visitation, largely attributed to the dollar to be sure, but there are other factors. There's more confidence by Americans in their economy. There's pent-up travel demand. Canada is a safe and easily accessible place to come and we certainly welcomed our fair share of US visitors here. It is still our largest international market in British Columbia. Some other key stats worth noting, YVR, there were passengers N-planing and D-planing at YVR that totaled over 20 million, that's a record the first time that's ever happened. That was up 5% from the previous year. You see with BC ferry passengers they carried more people and more vehicles, so lots of upswing on the tourism side this past year. There are the revenues about 14 and a half billion dollars in revenue in 2015, the real GDP, 7.1 billion. Aboriginal business now, if you look at the landscape for Aboriginal tourism in the province, 561 million in GDP and that number is growing as well. Aboriginal businesses paid about 12 million dollars in tax revenues to the province. Further stats and I apologize there are so many of them, but you'll see some of this for future reference as well to give you an idea of what the sector generates in terms of revenues. It's in the range of 45 to 50 million. There's several studies on this. It could even be much, much higher. This could be a conservative number, but it's taken from one of the studies that I recently looked at. There are 1500 Aboriginal tourism businesses across BC, 300 of which are about 20% are in British Columbia and they represent at the moment a small percentage of tourism businesses in all of the province, but as I've referenced a couple of times, have great potential for growth. You can see here that the majority of them are doing very well. They've retained or increased revenues over the past three years. More than half have been in business for 12 years, so these are well established tourism businesses in the province. 61% of them operate year-round, so that shows a good number have operations that employ people year-round and that are prepared to welcome visitors at any time of the year. They employ on average about eight full-time staff and fully 67% are operated, owned and operated by aboriginals. Last year there were 3.7 million visitors to aboriginal businesses in BC. Now, to be fair, much of the visitation are people who are adding the experience on versus the sole purpose for travel, meaning they've discovered that while they're in British Columbia there are aboriginal experiences to be had and therefore they choose to participate in them and that's a good sign and I think that's going to change in future too. It could be as there is further aboriginal product being developed throughout the province that will become a primary purpose for travel and not necessarily an add-on. Here you can see that the majority of visitors to aboriginal tourism operators or businesses come from other parts of Canada, from within the province, certainly Alberta and Ontario, those are the largest visitor markets for people traveling to British Columbia, but from the US and Europe also we see strong visitation to aboriginal businesses. The experiences that is what are people trying to do while they're here and they visit an aboriginal operator, they look for performances, certainly displays the events and the tours. The profile of an aboriginal experience visitor, the majority tend to be female, they're middle-aged to senior, they have high disposable income and they're highly educated and if you look at the profile and this is obtained through Destination Canada and some of the work that Destination British Columbia does, I venture to say they fall into the category of a cultural explorer and this is what the definition of a cultural explorer is. They're defined by their love of constant travel, they're looking to immerse themselves in the culture, they love meeting people, they appreciate the settings of the places that they visit, they're non-traditional, they're enthusiastic, they're described as creative and they believe that other cultures, namely in this case aboriginal tourism, has a lot to teach them. They like the element of surprise, they like being enriched by unexpected circumstances so they don't necessarily know what to expect when they visit an aboriginal business but they love experiencing whatever that business has to offer and they think the trying out new things is pretty thrilling. So once we expose them to the aboriginal tourism opportunity and they take that in, they quite enjoy it and will likely tell their friends or return to British Columbia. So here's the opportunity and I'm on the last part of the presentation. There are 200 First Nations bands in BC, Give or Take, approximately a third in all of Canada. They have seen growth in this sector of about 100% over the past five years so that's what I was referencing earlier about the opportunity. There's been tremendous growth and there will be more growth in future and it largely depends on not only promoting and marketing those experiences but certainly introducing new products and opportunities for people to experience around aboriginal tourism in BC. So there is a projection of moderate growth in the coming year and finally I end by TIABC, we're an advocacy organization. We certainly have done lots of work with First Nations advocating on their behalf around transportation issues. We do a lot of communicating and to a degree some marketing around the experiences but we're working with all sectors and regions on destination development providing the framework and the context and the opportunity to further develop aboriginal tourism products and experiences in BC. So thank you for that, looking forward to your questions. Awesome, thanks so much for that Walt, really appreciate it. If there are any questions for Walt right off the bat feel free to type those in or raise your hand just as we get set up to Bruce's presentation. I'm just going to flip over there. Bruce, you should have screen control shortly and I will invite Craig and Lily to come back to present those slides and Craig and Lily and a few guys are there. I think I've sent you an invite to turn on your webcam. If you don't see that feel free to just hit that webcam button so we can see you again. How's that? Perfect, there you are. And just before we get started we've just got one question here from Jayleen to Walt. Thanks so much for your presentation Walt. Are you willing to share your slides following the webinar? Yes, absolutely. Great, okay so Walt if you share me those slides I'll make sure that they're put up on our website along with a recording of this webinar today. So I am seeing a few other questions come in for Walt but I think now that we've got Craig and Lily with us we'll flip over to their presentation and we'll get to it first thing at the end of the presentation. So Lillian, feel free to take it away. Thank you. Hello there, I'm Lillian Hunt. I was born and raised in my village of Alert Bay. I am Numbees First Nation and we are the Kaukauki Rok. The region is on the northeast coast of Vancouver Island and over on the neighboring Is that thing incoming from you guys? No, it's not. Okay, so as you can see by this screen there's you know general information about Aboriginal tourism being hot and growing and doubling operators and revenues. The tools that we see Aboriginal Tourism Association of British Columbia has tools and programs to help with product development, skills development and marketing. At BC is the First Nations Running Managed Tourism Destination Management Organization in BC and we are tasked with growing the contribution of Aboriginal tourism to the potential economy. The data for 2015 isn't in yet although we know it's going to be a record high. All these stats will always be available on our websites including the Best Nations British Columbia websites. Now in 2014 a study was based on 2012 data and it showed tourism businesses in BC have doubled their number and revenue in six years since 2006. Aboriginal tourism is still a niche player in tourism but its iconic status gives us a worldwide brand recognition that can benefit all BC business. Aboriginal Tourism BC has created a number of tools and programs to help with this including some of our initial reason for at BC was a marketing program. We've developed some unique marketing initiatives especially to partner with non-Aboriginal business. Lillian I'm sorry to interrupt I'm just getting some feedback from some folks on the line that you're a little hard to hear so if you're able to maybe just speak up a little bit that would be appreciated. Thanks. Okay how's that? That sounds better. Thanks. A lot of this information is available on the website for anybody that misses anything where they can you know push or ask at the put their hand up. So we have tools to protect the culture as you can see here authentic Aboriginal tourism products that we've developed through at BC and these when we were going through this process this was something that we did in direct directly with the First Nation communities that were interested in establishing First Nation product. At BC is merely the association and we identified right from the very beginning that in order to move forward with some First Nation protocols that we needed to to work directly with the communities and so that's very important to anything that we do in Aboriginal tourism because at the heart of our Aboriginal tourism programs is our own local and Aboriginal fair fair deal, TISTI programs. One is for our true products and the other one is for arts and crafts. We had to identify this early on because we felt that we found that one model didn't suit the entire authentic Aboriginal program. At BC introduced a program that certifies the authenticity of the Aboriginal content of the product. With the authentic Indigenous program at BC make sure the artists who create arts and crafts are fairly compensated for their work and protected from fake or imitations. Okay, next slide shows the map that was developed particularly for Umistak Cultural Center in Lurk Bay which represents the full territory of the Kwakala speaking nations as you can see from this slide. This was actually developed before any kind of tourism program was developed for area but it recognizes the need for partners on the Aboriginal side, their challenge and opportunity with First Nation culture, working with the neighbors, starting with the Willamola Accord with Nimmo Bay and working toward mutual support. So authentic Aboriginal and Indigenous are as good as a start but there's much more potential to Aboriginal tourism. Aboriginal tourism businesses need external partners to connect with markets to bring in specialized skills and to gain access to the skills and capital needed to build new businesses and this is what we found individually in our own communities and what we've been able to bring to the table at Aboriginal Tourism BC the association so that all the communities will have an opportunity to participate in these programs. The communities have a long tradition of hospitality and sharing of course as in the case of the potlatch, but lack at critiqued running business and I have to say at this point I meant to point out in the very first slide that a potlatch is not considered a tourism product but certainly what we do offer in our community such as what I do and when we host visitors is to share the history of that ceremony and how important it is to the survival of our people. So to meet business needs Aboriginal communities are reaching out to our neighbors to business people like my friend here Craig Murray of Nemo Bay Resort as it shows on the next slide the case A case, B case, the Willamola Accord. In alert bay home of the Umistak Cultural Center as I mentioned earlier we're approached by Craig Murray who wanted to provide his high-end guests with exposure and Craig I'll let you talk about that. So this is what started the Willamola Accord on that faithful day sometime before 2004 because as you can imagine every great idea needs a special amount of time and a certain amount of funding to support the survival of this Nemo Bay Accord for sure. So the agreement between the Aboriginal communities and non-Aboriginal business neighbors certainly began in our region. So this Accord lays out principles of fair dealing, respect, and working toward mutual benefits. Since its introduction the Willamola Accord has been a cornerstone in new relationships and local businesses. Working together First Nations and non-Aboriginal communities are stronger particularly in remote and rural areas such as our home on the North Island and of course what we found within BC most First Nation communities there are a lot of remote First Nations. This tourism partnership in particular has helped in the formation of partnerships around all manner of resource and development activities from gravel pits to sea farming by demonstrating a successful model of being able to work together. And this is the initial introduction to the case of the Willamola Accord and Craig from Nemo Bay will carry on. Thanks Lillian. Honor about 2004 does where it does it and how it does and we decided that we could add a really great cultural element to our business by approaching First Nations folks to see if we can interest them in tourism and show them how tourism could be a great economic generator especially for the other the way villages that are in our area and there's as Lillian said quite a few of them. Our closest First Nations neighbor is a little village called Hope Town and it's in the Great Bear Rainforest on the mainland of Canada about seven miles from us. Henry and Julia Speck lived there with their kids and so we started that relationship 36 years ago with them and has been building ever since and we've become great friends and through a series of trips we put on for First Nations folks and we tried to show them what the non-Aboriginal brand of tourism looked like using helicopters and all kinds of crazy things like that flying throughout 50,000 have never really experienced their territories before to that extent. But we thought it would be a great idea just to ignite some fire see what could happen. Nemo Bay has been in the area now on the mainland where we're located but Mackenzie Sound are going to end the business. My son Fraser is looking after the business. My daughter looks after all the guest services and getting ambassador because he's one of the Canadian tenors and so everywhere he goes in the world Nemo Bay and the mainland and all our experiences get talked about on the stage before he does his presentations. So at 36 years of tourism in the area it's taken a while to develop tourism as a product of the Willa Mola Accord and the biggest drawback we found was the cultural opportunity. But back in 2004 I approached Lillian, Randy Bell, Andrea Sanborn, Bruce got involved and we came up with this Willa Mola Accord. Willa Mola in the Kwakwakwe language means we are all traveling together. It has to be all partnerships to make it work and that's what we found out. So partnering with First Nations was a no-brainer because we're traveling in their territory and we both have opportunities to offer each other. So we came up with the Willa Mola Accord and we've been trying to put that into practice ever since. And we as a non-aboriginal business benefit greatly because of the incredible settings and territories we get to travel in and take our guests in and we have gone to several villages in the area. So our guests from the First Nations people in Lurk Bay and Guilford and Hope Town, different places throughout the area, Kinkham Village. So we tried to really look after that partnership with First Nations and this is a plan that could work anywhere in Canada if people had the wherewithal to do that. So we just continued working together and we are still working together until this day. Respect and courtesy is a big deal for both sides. And after a while it becomes a friendship and a family as opposed to just a business relationship because you get to understand who you're working with and why you're working with them. And you get to understand looking after the environment, which is the cornerstone of the Willa Mola Accord, as the underlying factor that makes it all work because our business, any business is a subsidiary of the environment. Because with better an environment we don't have very much at all. So here in this area we're blessed with air to breathe, water to drink, and scenery beyond belief, wildlife and great people. So it's a winning combination and putting all that together, tourism can only stand to benefit from that. And tourism is about hospitality and First Nations have been a very hospitable people for 10,000 years since the last Ice Age. And hospitality is about creating a free space where transformation can happen naturally. And First Nations are all about transformation. And hospitality is also offering the guest friendship and freedom of space without leaving them alone. And that's key. It's people want to be led, they want to be taught, they want to be educated, and they want to be told all about the new environment that they're in. Now it's critical that we take control and do that. Because hospitality is an attitude of the heart. So you have to have some care and consideration for people to move through this program. And hospitality recognizes we're all traveling together, just as the wheel and mola accord says we do. So I think I'll just leave it there. And I'm going to pass it over to Bruce here. And Bruce and Lillian are going to talk on behalf of our friend Randy Bell. And Bruce? Yeah, thank you. So our next speaker was to be Randy Bell. But Randy's a well-respected fellow, but he's gone fishing. I want to quickly point out that this is not like Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn skipping school and going fishing. No, this is an important part of his culture and community. And maybe Lillian can tell us a little bit about the Ulican or the Tina. Thanks, Bruce. Certainly the most valuable item that's considered the most valuable, highest gift that you can actually give to receive from the hereditary chiefs, who are the only ones with permission to host these ceremonies. So this Ulican is harvested up in a beautiful, beautiful region that we call Zawadi. And this is a long process. And Randy is very fortunate that he gets to go up there this season. I'm sure he goes every year. But the really valuable thing about Randy participating is because he heads up the youth cultural youth program. This is something that he's been working on for several years now is to engage any of the youth and taking them out into our traditional territories and continuing with the teachings of traditional harvesting. This is crucial to our survival in our communities that we still have access to some of these foods, as you can imagine. Not all our people get to go up into these beautiful areas and harvest this Ulican. So this is very valuable source of our food. So cultural youth in the future, this is what the program that Randy heads up for our community. This is definitely something that we encourage in any community. It's fairly new in Alert Bay, but it's getting stronger every year. So Randy, Randy Bell, as you saw in the previous picture, is the director of training with our First Nation in Alert Bay. And it's his job to help the young people fit into a modern world while still accessing the teachings of our old ways. So culture is a doorway for understanding. On our side, it helps First Nations understand heritage, feel more comfortable in our skin, and better able to take on meaningful roles in modern society. For non-Aboriginal people, the First Nations culture can be a gateway to understanding themselves in their world. This is the base, the foundation for Aboriginal tourism. People from big cities all over the world see that First Nations have held on to some of the ancient ways of living, ways of living that look pretty darn attractive to our modern, busy, technology-driven civilization. This is certainly what we found to be true in Alert Bay. Randy's work in Alert Bay centers on helping the youth find their way in the modern world. One of the most interesting projects we've undertaken is the revival of the Uligan Grease Trail between the Numighese territories at Waslate, and this is all on Northern Vancouver Island, and the new channel territories in Newt Kassan on the west coast of Vancouver Island by taking youth out onto the land and showing them how their ancestors lived by making those traditions come alive. We help young people understand their identity. These same experiences are highly sought after by visitors from around the world, and again this cycle back into my training, this is something that we found out at the beginning of our developing our tour programs. To make it happen, to reach these global markets, we as First Nations have to work in partnership with businesses while we certainly find that working with non-First Nations business partners like my friend Craig at Nimmo Bay is definitely a valuable step that we're happy to take. So under the will of Momola Accord, people from our nation began doing guest performances for Craig's clients out at Nimmo Bay. It's a beautiful picture to have been a part of the initial will of Momola program where I got to go out and visit Nimmo Bay, but you can see the stunning backdrop provided to our beautiful cultural programs that Randy heads up with the youth, and partnering with dance directors of the Tassaha dance group by Andrew Crammer. To get to this point where we can make a partnership work, we had to learn how to work together. As Craig pointed out very truthfully, it's a respect on both sides that leads us to an understanding of each other's cultures. But original cultures, how you do things is often more important than what we do. The secret to developing a long lasting and meaning relationship with First Nations is to understand our protocols. As Bruce pointed out at the beginning of the introduction, sharing that information when he first visited us in Momola Bay, he was lucky that I was one of the first people that he actually ran into. So protocols are a set of rules for sharing learning and working together in the Momola Corps captures this. However, we as First Nation people have been developing protocols for thousands of years in our traditional territories, and these are well documented in the potlatch ceremony. They vary from place to place. This is very important to understand that the protocols that we enjoy in Momola Bay may be very different than protocols that you would experience elsewhere. And each nation is absolutely responsible for each of their own protocol ceremonies. In every community, there are elders and keepers who keep track of the information on the protocols. But as non-Aboriginal business people, the thing to do is find the expert on these protocols. And if you're lucky enough to find anybody with a phone number, I would highly encourage it. However, in this modern day world, taking from 2000 and then 2004 when the Willa Mola was first developed, and now here we are in 2016, there are certainly a little bit more of an easier way to contact these experts in each of their villages. So in the end, it all comes down to respect my ahala in our language. Be honest, be fair, and you will find who's nation partners who return your respect and treat you honestly and fairly, and are happy to share our knowledge on our individual protocols, and we invite you and welcome you to work with us. Bruce? Yeah. Little story time now. Go ahead. We break the protocol and tradition. Everybody loves stories. When we did the First Willa Mola Accord trip, we had three helicopters on board. We had a lot of First Nations folks, and every day we'd set out from Nemo Bay and we basically follow the Greece Trail. And the Greece is what they harvest from the Ulegans, the fish. And it's worth its weight in gold, probably more. And they use it as a trading mechanism for the folks on the west coast as well. Back in early, early days they traded women and dentini shells and sea otter pelts and all kinds of stuff for this Ulegan Greece. So we wanted to follow the Greece Trail to give people an idea of what was in the territory and how important the Greece was as a trading commodity. So that basically was set the scene for the next three days. So we started the whole venture up the head end of the Clean and Cleaner River, which dumps into Night Inlet. And that's where the Ulegans are being fished right now by Randy. There's a whole team of people up there harvesting those fish. And we followed that all the way down to Alert Bay through a series of inlets. Then from Alert Bay over to Nimpkish Lake, down Nimpkish Lake into Waslake and down Waslake to the height of land and over height of land down to Friendly Cove and Newt Island, where we had a fantastic experience out there. So we did the whole Greece Trail as part of this introductory tourism lesson to the Lillimola Court. And it was absolutely fabulous to see all the participants and their eyes widened as three helicopters approached in the sky settled down in the beaches and whatnot. It was very, very interesting indeed. So it was a very memorable occasion. And every night we returned to Nemo Bay for dinner and laughs and stories and all kinds of stuff. But that's what we're all about at Nemo Bay. So it was a very successful adventure. And I'm just hoping that something will come of it, like it was, like we did in that time. There you go. Story number one. Story number two, part of the people on board the helicopters is a lady by the name of Andy Ethel. Why are we sitting with her? That's right. And Ethel was 92 years old. And we landed up on the top of the Kingham Place here. And it was lunchtime up there. So we broke out the grub and started to have a great feast. And then at the end, gather everything up, everybody back in the helicopter. And of course at the edge of where we were eating, it's a thousand foot drop down to the glacier itself. So we gave the key to the pilot and he just put his nose over the edge of that lunch spot and then dropped her straight down. And Andy Ethel, you could hear her scream from the backseat. And I think she lost about 15 years right there. She never felt so good in all her life. She had one hell of a trip. Well, actually, Craig, that was me screaming. Andy Ethel was holding me and consoling me. Thank you. So some of the fun stuff that can happen on those adventures. It was very fun. There you go, Bruce, all yours. Well, thanks for the illustrations. Craig, you've always been able to make a splash, make an impression, and I think that's what makes your business great. I guess what we could say in conclusion, a couple of points that are pretty straightforward. One is that, as Walt told us, tourism is a large and growing industry and that there's a large and growing demand for the First Nations culture for the Aboriginal tourism part of it. As we heard from Craig, business needs First Nations partners to connect with its market demand and to gain access to the resources that our business wants to succeed. As we heard from Lillian and on behalf of Randy, we learned that First Nations need business partners for finance, for expertise, and for access to those markets. Now, I'm not the smartest guy in the world, but it seems to me that what we've got here is a clear opportunity for a win-win kind of a solution if we simply go forward with respect and good feeling to develop partnerships. I hope that you folks that are involved in economic development around the province will take a look at the Willamola Accord and similar kinds of agreements as ways for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities to work together so that we can all do better. Look forward to your questions, folks. Thank you so much, Craig and Lillian, for those great stories and ensuring your experiences for that. And Bruce, that was a great wrap up, I think. Thank you. So at this point, folks, feel free to type in your questions, either using the text box on your dashboard there, or you can push that virtual raise a hand button, and that will let me know that you'd like to ask a verbal question to our presenters today. Walt, I'll invite you to turn your webcam on just in case any questions come your way, and we've got a nice visual panel for our folks here today. And we do have a few in the queue already, so I'm just going to start at the top. We've got a question here from Cameron who asks, Walt, thoughts on international versus domestic visitors for Aboriginal experiences? In other words, would you recommend targeting Canadian, American or foreign visitors with marketing in the next one to three years? Well, domestic is still our largest market, and I would suggest that that's probably the place to start. Having said that, though, we learn more about our visitors every year and their propensity for Aboriginal experiences. So while I would certainly concentrate on the domestic market, you can see the potential to from the likes of the U.S. and Europe. And as you recognize what Destination BC and Destination Canada are doing from a marketing perspective, if they're incorporating Aboriginal tourism experiences into their marketing, then it stands to reason you would want to take advantage of that and certainly promote the Aboriginal product in your region to those international visitors. Great. Thanks, Walt. Another question here from one of our colleagues with the Ministry of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation, Teek. And this is probably a question for Bruce, you I would imagine, and maybe Walt, you can chime in on this. But Teek is asking, what type of resources and funding have been put into research on the negative impacts of ecotourism as determined by the injection of contrasting external cultural influences and by the commodification that accompanies ecotourism development. Bit of a mouthful there. If you want me to read it out again one more time, just let me know. Bruce, do you have any insight on that? Yeah. Only that we do recognize the potential for tourism to be a negative force to culture, particularly culture in remote and rural communities where essentially city people come in and and change the way the youth look at the world. I will point out that that's happening because of the internet now. The impacts of tourism are less than they were in say the 1960s and 70s in terms of social disruption. The way that we are trying to address those concerns is primarily one of approaching development from a destination or community-based point of view. Destination British Columbia launched this month a new process called destination development where we'll be looking at clusters and corridors of communities and figuring out strategies to develop their tourism potential. But that's going to take into account the social environment of the local place so that those local folks have some degree of control over what happens to them. And that's probably you're touching now on the topic of my own PhD research. That ability to have some control over what happens to you is probably central to communities feeling comfortable with tourism development. And it's exactly what Lillian and Craig were talking about. It's a question of respect. Business coming into a community has to come in respectfully and talk to the local people, talk to the Aboriginal community about what kind of tourism they would like to do and how they would like to do it. And I think if we go forward with that kind of respect held honestly in our hearts I think we can do well. Awesome thanks Bruce. Another question here from Jeanette who's asking can the Willamola Accord be shared? If someone wanted to read that accord where would they find it? Bruce you got a copy of that. I do indeed. I will give a copy to Josh to post with our PowerPoint for this presentation. There you go. There's your answer. At this point not seeing any more questions in the queue or a hand being raised but maybe a question for Lillian. Lillian if and this of course is generally speaking and I imagine it would change from community to community. But if a tourism business wanted to do business in and with an Aboriginal community or in the traditional territory of a First Nation what would be the best way of going about that to make that first step? Well to find someone in the First Nation community that you talked to I think that going back in our history of the cultural tourism program development at Amistar Cultural Center only dates back to 2000 and when we developed that program and the phone started to ring we're pleasantly surprised to find that you know so many inbound tour operators that were excited to have someone to connect with and community. So the old-fashioned way back then was just searching around and looking for people and in our case the Amistar Cultural Center was a good starting you know connection and they were happy to be able to do that. So I think that if anybody and how we work with inbound tour operators today I'm usually the first or second contact that people make when they when we're developing a visit a proposed visit. Great thank you and may I add to that please I wonder Lillian if it would be fair to say that for a business person who doesn't have a direct contact in a community that they could approach Aboriginal tourism BC? Yeah on our website absolutely that's a major connector. Great thanks for that that add-on Bruce and I suppose along a similar vein Lillian in your advice what would be a faux pas that a business you know could do on the first step what's something that someone certainly shouldn't do when when when approaching a First Nations community to do business in their territory? Well I think that the first thing they shouldn't do is to show up unannounced. Okay and and going back to the other question that you you know the negative impacts I think that in we can relive this in a little bit that was definitely some of the things that were happening at the time were tour operators and people were non-Aboriginal tour operators were bringing people and just plunking themselves in the village and wondering about on their own so that's one of the first things we identified as what we don't want to happen. Great thanks well it seems that all of your presentations were remarkably comprehensive because there don't seem to be too many questions coming in it seems that everyone's questions have been answered and we do have quite a few folks on the line so I think maybe I'll just give it a couple more minutes for any last-minute questions to come in but in the meantime just want to extend sincere thanks to Craig and Lillian for taking time out of your day to to present with us today I know that Lillian you need to do a bit of travel to get over to Craig's place and we certainly had some technical issues getting things off the ground so really appreciate your your patience Craig with that and and Lillian for helping out and again a big thanks to Bruce for gathering us all here today I appreciate your your expertise there Walt thank you so much for joining us I'm sure you've got a very busy schedule as well but certainly appreciated your your insights and some of the statistics to really show how important Aboriginal tourism is to BC's economy in our our overall tourism portfolio so unless there's any closing remarks from from any of our folks on the line any of our panelists I think we can wrap things up for today thank you hearing none thank you thank you thanks great thanks for much everyone have a great afternoon we'll see you next time