Six Nations Elected Council (SNEC) was approached by Humber College professor Anke Foller Carroll on co-creating an Indigenous tourism course with Indigenous educators to be provided at the post secondary education level.

Foller Carrol spoke at the May 23 general council meeting where she detailed how she intends to develop the course and shared her experience as an educator in the tourism industry.

"I would like to co-create a course for any post secondary students with you, that is led by indigenous educators on Indigenous tourism," she said. "I have worked many years in the field and I've connected international visitors with Indigenous tourism businesses here in Canada. In my role as an educator, I have done the same with my students in countries like Mexico, Panama, Costa Rica and Nicaragua."

Currently, she is asking for permission from SNEC to begin talks with local tourism businesses on Six Nations to seek their expertise and allow for there opinions to be included in the course once it is developed.

She said that she hopes with the creation of the course, it will help address the gap in post secondary education on Indigenous tourism.

"I've looked at the mission statement for Six Nations and a part of it reads that 'it is to educate visitors on the Haudenosaunee Culture' and I believe that by co-creating this course we would be addressing a big gap that is existing in post secondary education at the moment."

Foller Carrol says that she has reached out to multiple post secondary institutions, including Humber College's and University of Waterloo's Indigenous department heads, for their support of the course.

Six Nations Chief Mark Hill says he believes it is important to bring attention to tourism in Indigenous communities.

"I think this is a really important one. Over the years, I have not seen as much attention [that is] needed in the tourism sector, especially within Indigenous communities," he said. "I think this is something definitely of interest. In fact, we've even done a little bit of re-configuring our own tourism and what we want to see from it as well."

SNEC approved for Foller Carrol to take her next steps in contacting local tourism businesses on Six Nations to help her further continue her course development focused on Indigenous tourism.

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