Central Land Council

Tourism

 Every year thousands of local and overseas tourists head to the Northern Territory to visit spectacular natural attractions on Aboriginal land and to experience Aboriginal culture first hand. Uluru Kata Tjuta and Kakadu have been the flagships for this type of tourism experience, but now a diverse range of new tourism ventures and opportunities are emerging, backed up by sound economic and grassroots planning.

The Central Land Council and the Tourism NT are collaborating to assist local communities to strengthen existing tourism ventures and develop and improve traditional landowner ' s capacity to manage exciting new tourism projects. A Memorandum of Understanding between the two agencies has placed a Tourism Development Officer into the CLC Land Management Unit, to help improve Indigenous participation in the tourism industry, maximize the delivery of jobs and create economic growth for indigenous landowners and the Territory as a whole.

A special emphasis is being placed on sites along the soon to be sealed Mereenie Loop road and national park related opportunities, some of which are emerging through joint management planning processes. Ten projects have been selected for assistance for the 18month period of the project. A number of these will be new projects.

“What is Tourism” and “Stepping Stones” workshops are delivering a strong grassroots consultation, training, assessment and negotiation process. These are being run at a community and sub-regional level to draw out good ideas, let community members know what to expect from running a tourism venture, assess what might be feasible from a social, economic and business level and establish trial runs. The MOU provides for ongoing support from NTTC for tourism projects that are kick-started through the workshop and development processes.