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The
Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs (Oregon) are trying to re-invent
their relationship with tourism.
Years ago, they built a resort, and later added a casino.
Warm Springs tourism, as it has evolved, has been about
delivering resort and casino experiences, and has not focused on
cultural exchange.
The
tribes hope to move the casino out of the heart of their lands
and develop tourism in a way that shares and reinforces their
culture. But
they’re worried, after past experiences, that tourism might
take away privacy and dignity.
They would also like to design tourism to expand business
and employment opportunities for tribal members.
The
tribes turned to Egret to assess how existing and potential
tourism products might fare in the market, looking for strengths
and opportunities. We
looked at individual products, classes of products, competing
destinations, types of visitors, relationships between visitors
and hosts, demographics by visitor activity interest, trends at
all levels, and a whole host of other factors.
We
described the challenges and opportunities and laid out a path
toward a guided tourism economy that would create jobs and
business opportunities, build a positive relationship between
visitors and hosts, raise the spending level of each visitor,
and enable the tribes to manage visitor impacts on both people
and natural resources.
The plan and planning
process received Oregon Tourism's Creative Tourism Development
Award in 2005, in recognition of the cooperative process and the
balance between responding to tourism trends, building in
sustainability, and making the plan consistent with tribal
culture and community character. |
