Key facts
- There are directories and websites listing Aboriginal run and owned tourism businesses and initiatives. As well as hub services in the Northern Territory which take bookings for numerous small operators.
- There are more than 300 indigenous tourism businesses around Australia.
- Aboriginals make up 2.3 per cent of the Australian population.
- There are more than 700 different dialects of 250 Aboriginal languages across Australia.
Full story
Today, more than ever, you can enter into the world of an ancient culture accompanied by its modern day custodians, descendants of one of the most fascinating and unique cultures on earth.
Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have an enormously diverse and complex culture that traces its roots back more than 50,000 years – one of the longest of any society on the planet. And, there are now numerous Indigenous owned and operated enterprises that offer to help you explore this dramatically different world.
More and more operations are starting up, providing employment to local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. As well as helping to keep alive cultures and traditions, these initiatives create jobs for young people, so they can stay in their local area, living within their culture, and earning an income.
By supporting these Indigenous entrepreneurs you’ll be supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people directly as well as the communities within which they live.
The huge interest in Aboriginal culture has spawned a number of unique and individual tour operators who are now part of a thriving tourism industry as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people share their insight into the life, landscape and history.
From accommodation to tours, from national award winners to small communities and families starting out in tourism, our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities have become the leaders of cultural tourism in this country, attracting people to stay in their local areas, enhancing their experiences there, and having a positive effect on local life.
Initiatives such as Outback Pride, a bush foods production project, employ and sustain small Aboriginal communities in various parts of Australia. There are numerous Indigenous art co-operatives and galleries producing and selling Indigenous art direct to the public.
Aboriginal tourism is burgeoning. Seek out and find these entrepreneurs on websites such as the WAITOC site showcasing WA Aboriginal operators or most state and Territory tourism websites.
Aboriginal tour guides are ready and willing to lead you into the Dreamtime land of their ancestors. Whether it’s on a guided bushwalk on traditional lands with an Aboriginal guide, staying in an Aboriginal camp, learning how to find bush foods and medicines to survive in the bush or hearing about the Dreamtime from an Aboriginal perspective.
Uniquely Australian
- Visit an Aboriginal art gallery. There are many in the cities around Australia, or you can purchase high quality art direct from Aboriginal communities. There are many fully or partly-owned Aboriginal operated community enterprises promoting authentic Aboriginal art to the world.
- Visit an Aboriginal art co-operative such as the one at Papunya Tula community, home of the Western Desert Artists movement.
- Go on an Aboriginal Tour. On an Aboriginal owned and operated tour, authenticity is guaranteed. You can learn about Aboriginal history and culture when a family group, Elders or Aboriginal guides allow you to experience their 50,000 year old vibrant living culture today on a tour of their homelands.
- Go on a guided bushwalk of traditional lands with an Aboriginal guide. You’ll see the bush and rainforest with new eyes when an Aboriginal guide shows you how the environment provided food, shelter, weapons and home wares. You’ll visit spectacular rock art sites, go on guided rainforest walks and go fishing. You can go walkabout on an Aboriginal owned and guided walking tour in places such as the Blue Mountains, the Daintree Forest and Monkey Mia.
- Buy native bush foods from Outback Pride, a community employment program that generates food sales to increase Aboriginal employment and help grow the native food industry. Outback Pride sources native herbs and spices from Aboriginal communities which have established market gardens to supply the increasing demand for this product. The group of Aboriginal communities forming the Outback Pride network represents the largest bushfood growing organisation in Australia. You can buy their products in stores or online or visit one of the many Aboriginal communities growing bushfoods such as desert raisins and quandongs.
- Take a Tribal Warrior Cruise of Sydney Harbour with the traditional people of the harbour. See the area through Aboriginal eyes, hear about the original clans which inhabited the area and stop off at Clarke Island to witness a song and dance ceremony.
Who better to tell the story of Mungo than the traditional caretakers of this land. Stomp the dirt from your boots, climb aboard the air-conditioned bus and meet your local Aboriginal tour guide for tours of the Willandra Lakes, including Mungo National Park.