Native Nations – Tracing Indigenous Footsteps is a finalist this year in the New Zealand Tourism Awards under the category of “Industry Alignment & Collaboration”.
6 months is all it took, for a couple of extremely passionate indigenous people from Australia and New Zealand to connect, develop, orchestrate and deliver an extraordinarily powerful Regenerative & Indigenous Global Tourism Campaign!
Native Nations – Tracing Indigenous Footsteps was developed by Nadine Toetoe of Kohutapu Lodge – Lake Aniwhenua, Bay of Plenty and co-founder (Kaleb Comollatti), along with their partners in Australia and across our tourism industry.
Judges praised Kohutapu Lodge’s incredibly brave leadership and the amazing global collaboration at work. “The lasting and longer-term results are yet to be seen, but the buy in from partners and impact on the youth and community is clearly visible,” they said.
“The impact has been huge on those who were a part of this amazing kaupapa – most importantly our rangatahi (our youth), our indigenous operators and the communities we touched along the way – as well as hearing the future aspirations for our kaupapa through our young people’s voice,” says Nadine.
“We could not be any more proud to be named as a finalist, out of the hundreds of entries. It is an absolute honour and a true testament to the beauty of this powerful regenerative, indigenous global tourism campaign, designed to uplift communities, youth, our environment and indigenous tourism operators and visitors around the world.”
And what is even more special, is that it was created, orchestrated and executed by just a couple of passionate indigenous people who would not give up on their dream to bring their wider community and industry partners along for this journey to change the world for the better and make positive change for our future generations.
“Nga mihi nui to everyone involved, the hundreds and hundreds of hours of mahi, passion, dedication…to all of the kaiako in Australia and Aotearoa who provided awhi on the ground for our rangatahi, to all of our industry partners, sponsors and indigenous tourism operators across Aotearoa and Australia, and last but not least… to all of our beautiful, intelligent, deep thinking, soulful, inspiring rangatahi who ARE going to absolutely change the world,” says Nadine.
To check out the amazing video of the project, click here.
