Vernon, BC – Glohaven Community Hub, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform empowering tourism communities with innovative and sustainable destination management solutions, has announced a partnership with the Indigenous Tourism Association of Canada (ITAC).

In recognition of the Truth & Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action*, Glohaven and ITAC are collaborating to amplify the voices of Indigenous-owned tourism businesses and provide consumers with the opportunity to demonstrate economic reconciliation by consciously shopping for and supporting the unique products and experiences of Indigenous creators.

The objective of the partnership between Glohaven and ITAC is to provide Indigenous tourism communities and businesses with the digital infrastructure and direct-to-consumer sales channels they need to be more accessible to a broader audience of socially conscious consumers in the online world.

Growing Indigenous Tourism & Business Reconciliation Through Partnership

The Indigenous Tourism Sector plays a key economic, social, and cultural role in Canada and it’s an important part of diversifying the visitor economy.

“Indigenous tourism was the fastest growing sector in Canada’s tourism industry prior to the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Glohaven CEO, Michael Benedek. “With domestic and international travel grinding to a halt during the pandemic, many tourism businesses – especially those owned by Indigenous entrepreneurs – have been severely impacted by significant losses of revenue and livelihoods. As the industry strives to build back better, it’s an honour and a privilege for Glohaven to be working in partnership with ITAC and their members to support the Indigenous Tourism Sector.”

“We are excited about this new partnership with Glohaven Community Hub, which will provide Indigenous tourism businesses the platform to sell direct-to-consumers, increasing their sales and potential customers,” says Keith Henry, President and CEO of ITAC. “This is an important marketing tactic given the strong domestic and global demand for Indigenous tourism experiences and will contribute to the long-term sustainability and prosperous recovery of the Indigenous tourism industry.”

Glohaven and ITAC recognize the power of working together, leveraging each other’s unique skills and resources to support Indigenous tourism businesses with innovative, creative, and tangible sales and marketing solutions. Furthermore, this partnership contributes to the performance of Canada’s visitor economy as a sustainable Indigenous tourism destination.

To show your support for Indigenous-owned businesses in your community, it can be as simple as:

Learning about and supporting Indigenous businesses, purchasing an indigenous product or experience, booking your next holiday at Indigenous owned accommodations, learning your local land acknowledgement and including it in the signature of your emails, providing a culturally safe workplace and implement strategies in your business.

The Glohaven team is taking action to learn more by reading, studying, and educating ourselves through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls To Action, personally authored books, such as Elaine Alec’s, ‘Calling My Spirit Back’ (featured in the Indigenous Globox™), reading and understanding UNDRIP, taking Cultural Safety workshops, following Indigenous news sources, such as IndigiNews and more.

About Glohaven Community Hub

Glohaven is a community of people who’ve come together for the purpose of making tourism in Canada more innovative. With a heart and soul for ‘local’ Glohaven cares about people, the planet, and profits that fuel our purpose to create meaningful, impactful change in the lives and communities we serve. Our dream for Glohaven is to create a greater sense of community and connection to ‘local’… especially in the online world.

We believe the most appealing aspect and greatest strength of Glohaven’s digital community hub is the fact it’s built from the “Inside Out” starting at the community level. This vision enables every community and its members to participate in the collaborative process to create a locally represented, inclusive online marketplace that reflects the unique products, values, and culture of each community.

Glohaven is currently testing an open Beta version of its platform. This means Glohaven is not done developing the platform, but has enough features built to run the platform at its minimum functionality. Over time, the functionality of the platform will increase and new features will appear. Glohaven looks forward to working with ITAC and its members to launch this online network of community-based marketplaces that will make it easier for people to explore, shop, and support local economies in a more sustainable way.

Glohaven Community Hub respectfully acknowledges we live, work, and play on the ancestral, traditional, and unceded territory of the Okanagan Nation and the Syilx People.

About The Indigenous Tourism Association of Canada

The Indigenous Tourism Association of Canada (ITAC) is a national non-profit Indigenous tourism industry organization established in 2015. ITAC is the lead organization tasked with growing and promoting the Indigenous tourism industry across the country. Inspired by a vision for a thriving Indigenous tourism economy sharing authentic, memorable and enriching experiences, ITAC develops relationships with groups and regions with similar mandates to enable collective support, product development, promotion and marketing of authentic Indigenous tourism businesses in a respectful protocol.

The head office of ITAC is located in Vancouver, BC, on the unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples, including the territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.