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Anglo-Saxon countries; Australia, New Zealand, the U.S.A. and Canada
Colonisation in Australia started in the late 18th century, with British settlements. Great Britain would send convicts in exile to build the country and the Proclamation of Governor Bourke17 stated that the land did not belong to anyone before the Bristish settlement, and that « All people [including Aborigines] found occupying the land without the authority of the government would be considered illegal trespassers ». Most Indigenous peoples have been expropriated and forced to move to remote areas. Still today, a lot of them do not own any land, which makes it impossible for them to start a business. Another fact that had a major impact on the Aboriginal communities was the removal of Aboriginal children from their parents by the Australian Federal and State government agencies and church missions between 1869 and 1969. The official purpose of it was to protect neglected, abused or abandoned children, but documents form the early 20th century show that the main purpose was to maintain white racial purity18. These children are called the « Stolen Generation » and as a result, they have lost their true identity, feeling neither « white » – because of white people not considering them as equals – nor « black » as they did not get an Aboriginal education and therefore do not understand and assimilate to the Aboriginal culture.
Today, the Aborigines only account for 2.6% (out of 21.5 million) of the Australian population, and they represent the most disadvantaged community in the country, facing health, education, unemployment, poverty and crime problem.
In New Zealand, Europeans and North Americans started whaling, sealing and trading ships in the 1770s, as well as trading goods with the Māori communities. Only when the British government realised that the French were increasingly settling in, did they claim sovereignty and negotiate a treaty with Māoris19. The treaty guaranteed their rights to Māoris, but as the number of settlers increased, conflicts over the land led to the New Zealand Land War20, during which Māoris lost most of their lands. After World War II, Māoris started moving to the cities, abandoning their traditional rural lifestyles to find work, and in the 1970s a Māori protest movement was created, in order to criticise Eurocentrism and to seek more recognition of Māori culture and the Treaty of Waitangi, which they felt had not been fully honoured. However, when looking at the « Recent history » section in the Wikipedia21 article on New Zealand, it is striking that the word « Māori » does not appear once, even though the same article shows that they accounted for 14.6% of the population in the 2006 census, and depsite the fact that Māori language (Te Reo Māori) is an official language spoken by 4.1% of New Zealanders. But despite the fact that the Māori culture put up with a lot of changes due to the European settlement, most of them still live according to their traditions.
South American countries
South America was originally populated by the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Americas, mistakenly called « Indians » by Christopher Columbus in 1492, who opened the way to colonisation. Just like what happened in North America and Oceania, Indigenous population suffered enormous loss because of European diseases, population dislocation and wars.
Today many countries in South America still count a great population of Indigenous communities, like in Bolivia (55%), Ecuador (25%), Guatemala (40.8%), Mexico(30%) and Peru (45%)31, but most of them have adopted a Western lifestyle to certain extent, in regards to religion, social organisation and work. In some other countries, the Indigenous population has almost disappeared, like in Columbia (1%) Brazil (0.4%), Argentina (1%) Chile (4.6%) and Honduras (7%) and they account for the poorest part of the population in their respective countries.
African countries
Europeans started colonising African islands and coastlines in the 13th and 14th centuries, occupying 10% of the continent: Algeria, Cape Colony, Angola and Mozambique. Then European traders would come to Africa for the slave trade. But the real scramble for Africa did not start until the 19th century. By 1905, almost the whole of the African continent was colonised, except for Liberia and Ethiopia. France and the United Kingdom owned most of the land, « sharing » the rest with Portugal, Belgium, Italy, Spain and Germany. The whole colonisation period and process led to many wars: resistance against the European settlement, and wars between European countries, fighting over the land.
As a result, after the decolonisation period, most African countries suffered long-term negative effects. Indeed, Europeans had deprived them from their natural resources such as the gold and rubber, the countries’ economy was a catastrophe, people were confused as they did not know which culture to embrace, and the political situation was a disaster as most African leaders turned out to be despots. Nowadays, most African countries have a more or less stable situation, and the Indigenous populations prevail (the country with the largest White population is South Africa with about 5.2 million people, that is 11% of the total South African population). However, English and French are the official languages in 22 African countries each.
Asian countries
During the 16th century, Europeans started to travel massively to Asia for the spices trade. Portugal, The Netherlands, France and Britain established settlements in India, the surrounding countries and Southeast Asia, until the British eliminated all other settlements and India became part of the British Empire. Today, English still remains one of the official languages in India. France colonised Indochina mainly to protect its religious mission and to secure trade with China, but also to benefit from the trade of its natural resources like opium, salt, rice and rubber. After the decolonisation period, the French left Indochina, which divided in the current countries (Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Burma, Cambodia, Malaysia and Singapore) and were at the heart of the Cold War.
To conclude, the purpose of European colonisation was mainly to find new fertile lands (like North America), to exploit natural resources to be used in Europe (Africa), and to find new trade ways around the world (Asia).
It is clear that the consequences have mainly been negative. Several lethal diseases spread in untouched regions of the world, killing millions. Europeans imposed their systems of social values that pleaded inequality, slavery and exploitation, Catholicism, capitalism, imperialism and wars, leaving Indigenous populations in between two cultures: their Aboriginal culture and the Western culture.
Table of contents :
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
INTRODUCTION
I – STATE OF THINGS
1- Tourism is a major global industry
2- Indigenous tourism is quite rare
Definition of the term « Indigenous »
Definition of Indigenous tourism
3- Colonisation and Indigenous peoples
Anglo-Saxon countries; Australia, New Zealand, the U.S.A. and Canada
South American countries
African countries
Asian countries
4- The current Indigenous tourism industry
Tourists and Indigenous culture: Case of Aboriginal Australians, Maoris, Native
Americans and Aboriginal peoples of Canada
Very few Indigenous-owned and managed tourism businesses
5- Main barriers to tourism enterprise development in Indigenous communities
II – SOCIAL ENTERPRISE
1- What is Social Enterprise?
Definition
Case study 1: The Grand Canyon Skywalk
Case study 2: Kuku Yalanji Dreamtime Tours
Case study 3: Cree Village Ecolodge
2- Why could social enterprise benefit Indigenous populations?
III – A NEW BUSINESS MODEL: A SOCIAL TOURISM ENTERPRISE
1- On a global scale
2- On a local scale
The Social Enterprise Plan
Norms and Quality
The Product
The Target Market
Management Strategies
The Leadership
Finances
Marketing and Communications
BIBLIOGRAPHY
