On tourism & indigenous values

After spending several weeks on a guided tour through Alaska, certain patterns stood out. The experience was smooth, visually impressive, and delivered exactly what the itinerary promised. For anyone looking for structured, low-effort travel, it worked well. My partner and I, by far the youngest in a group of around forty, enjoyed many aspects of the trip. But beneath the surface, contradictions became hard to ignore.

This reflection started with the way the tour handled Alaska Native cultures. As I thought more about it, I realized the issue is not unique to Alaska. It applies more broadly to how Indigenous lands are turned into tourist destinations. Modern tourism, in its commercial form, does not align with Indigenous values. There is no scalable way to present a worldview based on reciprocity, stewardship, and deep local knowledge within a model built for convenience and consumption. Unless a person fully integrates into an Indigenous community, which no packaged tour can offer, they are only shown fragments, carefully selected for comfort and market appeal.

As someone of Māori descent, from Ngāi Tahu, this disconnect is familiar. I have seen the way Indigenous identity is often packaged into marketable moments: a carving at an airport, a haka for an audience, a few minutes in a museum exhibit. These representations rarely carry the weight of whakapapa, of obligations to land and kin, or of a lived ethic of care. What is offered instead is something recognisable to the tourist eye; safe, aesthetic, and consumable.

This is not about blaming any one company or location. It is about the structural limits of tourism as a commercial industry operating on Indigenous land.

Touring Indigenous lands often follows a predictable script. Branded itineraries, scheduled activities, and polished narratives guide travelers through a simplified version of place. Tour buses deliver visitors to gift shops and commercial zones before they even experience the land. The dominant story typically highlights settler achievements such as exploration, conquest, and development while skipping over the long human history that came before colonization.

Rarely is there any meaningful exploration of the depth or variety of Indigenous cultures that have existed for thousands of years. Systems of knowledge rooted in place, practices of ecological care, and values centered on community are reduced to quick references, museum exhibits, or souvenir items. These are selected to avoid disrupting the tourism model, which depends on high-volume consumption and entertainment.

The lack of Indigenous perspectives is not a coincidence. Core Indigenous principles like sustainability, reciprocity, and collective responsibility are at odds with an industry focused on speed, profit, and spectacle. There is little space to engage with ideas like subsistence living, interdependence, or sacred landscapes when efficiency and sales are the main goals.

Many tourism experiences promote a view of the world where landscapes are just scenery and destinations are things to consume. Activities often emphasize access and conquest, including glacier flights, hikes through sacred areas, or photo opportunities in ceremonial spaces, without recognizing the cultural or spiritual significance of the land.

Tourism could be a tool for learning and connection, but the way it currently operates makes that unlikely. Genuine engagement with Indigenous worldviews would challenge the foundation of tourism as consumption. If land is sacred, it cannot be bought and sold. If resources are shared and managed across generations, they cannot be turned into products for sale.

This is not just about historical erasure. It is about controlling the story. Organized tourism avoids confronting these contradictions. It offers curated experiences that let travelers feel they have accomplished something. But the version of the land that is reciprocal, meaningful, and uncommodifiable does not fit that model.

From a Ngāi Tahu perspective, the land is not just landscape—it is ancestor. Our stories are written into the rivers and mountains. To commodify that relationship is not neutral; it is a fundamental misunderstanding. The challenge is not simply to include more Indigenous voices in tourism, but to ask whether the dominant structure of tourism can ever reflect Indigenous ways of being.