language, cultural capital, and community tourism

[Jenn Wheeler]

Hi Natalia,

I would contact Aboriginal Tourism BC. British Columbia is rich in diverse
native cultures and their model would be a good one to ask for. Further in
BC, there is also the new Lil'wat Cultural Centre in Whistler, a native
museum run by native peoples from two nations.

Secondly, google details for a person in Cochabamba, Bolivia named Alan
Lispergueur (spanish speaking only). He coordinates a tour operation with
native peoples that is extremely sustainable and involves the community in
making it happen, specifically with the Trinitario and Yuracare tribes. He
is Bolivian himself but went to school in Germany for university.

Depending on the country in Central America, hopefully it is well accessed
by air traffic. I would connect with the tourism board for the country and
learn more about contacts with existing tour operators. Beyond this, I
would also connect with hotels and hostels with their front line staff to
recommend activities in the area for their guests. If possible, aboriginal
tourism is particularly strong with the German market, so unlikely there is
a lot of German traveling to central america, but always a chance. I know
there are a great deal of   young Israelis who travel through Central/South
America after serving in the army, and this specific market as well would
potentially be interested.

I hope this helps? I have a business degree in Hospitality and Tourism
Management from Ryerson in Toronto.

Jennifer



On Fri, Nov 25, 2011 at 10:32 PM, Natalia Bermudez <nbermudez10 at gmail.com>wrote:

> Hello All,
>
> I've been working a language documentation project in an indigenous
> territory in Central America for about a year. Tourism is a recent but
> booming economy in the territory that has influenced the reasons they want
> to document traditions. With community leaders (and in house-to-house
> visits), I've been brainstorming ways to balance community benefit and
> individual family/clan benefit from tourism that comes through the
> territory. Examples of effective tourism economy models from other "native"
> populations would help. Does anyone know of useful scholarly work or have
> first-hand experience, for example, in distributing income through native
> community museums or standardizing cultural capital? We will much
> appreciate any suggestions.
>
> Thanks,
> Natalia
>



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