Research help

This guide provides resources on Aboriginal tourism. 

You can contact Moninder Lalli, Librarian for Graduate Business moninder_lalli@sfu.ca for assistance via email or via Ask a librarian.

Additional SFU Library guides

• BUEC Buzz BLOG: Business and BC's Indigenous Communities and Indigenous business books & e-books
• Indigenous business resources, Economic indicators, Market research
• Library guide for Executive MBA in Indigenous Business and Leadership - This guide was created to assist students in our EMBA program. It features detailed tips for finding books, sites, and articles both here at SFU and beyond.
• Belzberg Library Information for Graduate Business Programs.  (Belzberg Library is located in downtown Vancouver)
• First Nations Research Resources - Designed for our First Nations Studies researchers, this guide will lead you to data, books, and more. Not a "business" focus, but some of the resources may still be useful. Be sure to explore the full table of contents, from dictionaries to additional guides on the web.

Selected reference works

• Handbook of marketing research methodologies for hospitality and tourism (2007) [print]
• Handbook of tourism impacts : social and environmental perspectives (2022)
• Routledge handbook of community-based tourism management : concepts, issues & implications (2021)
• Routledge handbook of cultural tourism (2012)
• Routledge handbook of ecotourism (2022)
• Routledge handbook of sustainable heritage (2023)
• Routledge handbook of tourism marketing (2014)
• Handbook of tourism impacts : social and environmental perspectives (2022)

Find journal articles

• Business Source Complete Key resource for most business topics indexing thousands of business journals, industry magazines, and industry & market reports.

Example searches:

(aborig* or native* or "First Nations" or indigenous) AND (market* or tour* or ecotour* or eco-tour* or "heritage tour*" or "cultur* tour*") AND (canad* or BC or "British Columbia" or Ontario) 
   Results  (These results were further limited by "Geography" of Canada and its provinces)    

( aborig* or native* or "First Nations" or indigenous ) (AND Covid-19 or coronavirus or pandemic)
 Results (These results can be further limited by "Subject" or "Geography") 

(TI "industry profile") AND (TX marketline) AND tourism AND Canada
  Result (For Marketline's profiles of tourism for other countries, simply leave out "Canada" from the search strategy)

• Bibliography of Indigenous Peoples in North America - Academic articles and Indigenous news sources.  Covers all aspects of Native North American culture, history, and life from the sixteenth century to the present. Topics include archaeology, multicultural relations, gaming, governance, legend, and literacy. 

Example search:

(market* or tour* or ecotour* eco-tour* or "heritage tour*" or "cultur* tour") AND (Canad* or BC or "British Columbia" or Ontario)
 Results (These results further limited by selected "subjects" related to "tourism")

E.g.
Maher, P. T., MacPherson, S., Doucette, M. B., Tulk, J. E., & Menge, T. (2018). Sustainability, Ethics, and Authenticity in Indigenous Tourism: The Case of Eskasoni Cultural Journeys on Goat Island. Journal of Aboriginal Economic Development, 11(1), 90–106. Retrieved from https://search-ebscohost-com.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/login.aspx?direct=true&db=fph&AN=132648073&site=ehost-live

DE "INDIGENOUS tourism"
 Results

• CBCA Fulltext Business  A broad range of Canadian business periodicals, including trade journals, general business publications, academic journals, and topical journals.

Example search:

(aborig* OR indigen* OR native* OR "First Nations") AND (market* or tour* or ecotour* eco-tour* or "heritage tour*" or "cultur* tour")
Results (These results were limited to Canada and its provinces)

• Canadian Newsstream  Full text access to major Canadian daily newspapers (such as the Globe and Mail, National Post, The Gazette (Montreal), and Vancouver Sun) as well as small market newspapers and weeklies published in Canada.
• Environment Complete Comprehensive coverage (over 1,900 journals) in environmental and many related disciplines. Also available is fulltext access to over 200 monographs.

Example search: 

(DE "Green marketing" or tour* or eco-tour* or ecotour* or "heritage tour*" or "cultur* tour*") AND (aborig* or indigen* or native* or "First Nations") AND
(Canad* or Alberta or Ontario or BC or "British Columbia")
 Results

For more, try the list of Marketing databases

Selected journals

• Journal of Aboriginal economic development [print]
      This journal is shelved on the 6th floor of the W.A.C. Bennett Library at SFU's Burnaby Campus.
• Journal of ecotourism
• Journal of heritage tourism

Find books

BLOG: Indigenous business books & e-books

Search the Library Catalogue to find books, journal articles, government publications, films and more.  For any of the sample searches below, try limiting the search results by "Subject" (left-hand side) or by "Resource type." For more tips, consult the Library Catalogue search guide

Search the SFU Library Catalogue

Find a book by title:

Use Browse Search tab (top of screen) to find books by a specific author or title.

Find books by topic:

Sample searches:

• tour* AND (pandemic OR Covid-19 OR coronavirus*)
  • search limited to selected "subjects"
• (epidemic* OR coronavirus OR covid-19) AND (indigen* OR aborig*) AND (business* OR company OR tour* OR market*)
   
• "aboriginal tourism" OR "indigenous tourism"
   
• "aboriginal tourism" OR "indigenous tourism" OR "Cultural tourism" OR "heritage tourism"
   
• (tour* OR ecotour* OR eco-tour* OR "heritage tourism") AND (aborig* OR "First Nations* OR indigen*) AND (BC OR "British Columbia" OR Canad*)
  • Results (above) limited by selected "Subjects"
     
• (wine* OR ski* OR wilderness OR forest* OR fish*) AND (tour* OR ecotour* OR "heritage tour*") AND (aboriginal OR indigenous OR "First Nations")
  • Results limited by selected "Subjects" 
     
• ("settler colonial*" OR decolonial* OR post-colonial* OR imperialism) AND (tour* OR travel* OR ecotour*) AND (aborig* OR "First Nations OR indigen*) 
  • Can further limit by "Subjects"

Combine different concepts using AND
Combine same concepts using OR
Use quotation marks to search for a phrase
Use brackets for synonyms
Use asterisk (*) for different endings of words

Note:  For Catalogue Search, when combining concepts, use CAPITAL letters ( "OR", "AND")

Selected books

• Aboriginal tourism engagement strategy : final report
• Aboriginal cultural tourism : tourism sector profile
• Building the Aboriginal tourism product : development of a Northwest Territories Aboriginal tourism sector
• COVID-19 and travel : impacts, responses and outcomes 
• Cultural and heritage tourism development : the essential guide for BC tourism businesses interested in developing a cultural or heritage tourism operation
• Decolonizing employment : Aboriginal inclusion in Canada's labour market 
• Impact of COVID-19 on Businesses Majority-Owned by Specific Populations, First Quarter of 2021 (Statistics Canada)
• Indigenous Tourism : Cases from Australia and New Zealand
• Indigenous tourism movements

Selected Subject Headings

• Covid-19
• Indian business enterprises -- Canada
• Native business enterprises
• Tourism
• Tourism -- British Columbia
• Tourism -- Canada
• Tourism -- Health Aspects
• Tourism -- Marketing

Business plans

• Business Plans and Profiles Index
  ​Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh's list of (mostly) freely available Business Plans, from plans for accounting consulting firms to wineries. Business plans can be a great source for gathering cost information.   See also these 44 volumes of the Business Plans Handbook -- all online and searchable for SFU researchers.
  • Travel & Tourism

Government information

Government sources can provide useful reports,  statistics, and policy documents.

Canada

Health Canada

• COVID-19 Health product industry
• Indigenous peoples
  • Coronavirus and Indigenous communities - Support for First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities to prepare for, monitor and respond to COVID-19

Canadian Intellectual Property Office: Makatew Workshops: Building a business around a brand!

Indigenous Services Canada: search for tourism to find articles, case studies and more

Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada

• The Canadian tourism sector 
• New Federal Tourism Growth Strategy
• SME Profile: Tourism Industries in Canada, 2020 

Parks Canada: Indigenous tourism experiences 

Statistics Canada  Variety of travel and tourism statistics.

Statistics by Subjects:

• Indigenous peoples
• Travel and Tourism
• StatCan COVID-19: Data to Insights for a Better Canada
•  

Searches and reports

• Analysis on businesses majority-owned by various sub-population groups and visible minorities, first quarter of 2022
• Covid-19
• Covid-19 AND travel, E.g.
  • The Economic Impact of Travel Restrictions on the Canadian Economy due to the COVID-19 Pandemic (11-626-X2020023)
  • Impact of COVID-19 on the tourism sector, second quarter of 2021 (45-28-0001202100100023)
• (aborig* OR indigen*) AND (travel OR industr* OR business*)
  • A Profile of Businesses in Indigenous Communities in Canada (18-001-X2019002)
  • Impact of COVID-19 on businesses majority-owned by specific populations, first quarter of 2021
  • Impact of COVID-19 on businesses majority-owned by visible minorities in Canada, second quarter of 2021 (45-28-0001202100100026)
  • Indigenous people and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic (45-28-0001202000100035)
  • Indigenous people in urban areas: Vulnerabilities to the socioeconomic impacts of COVID-19 (45-28-0001202000100023)
  • Labour market impacts of COVID-19 on Indigenous people: March to August 2020 (45-28-0001202000100085)

British Columbia

• Indigenous People
  A good starting point for a wealth of BC government resources, ranging from an A-Z listing of all BC First Nations (with links to deeper resources on each of them), economic development resources, and community support resources. 
• Ministry of Tourism, Culture, and the Arts 
  • Tourism Research
  • Conversations on the Future of Tourism in B.C.
• BC Stats - tourism industry statistics

For more, see Government information

Associations and organizations

• BC Wilderness Tourism Association
• Canadian Tourism Human Resource Council
• Destination BC: industry site + public site
• Destination Canada: industry site + public site
• Indigenous Tourism BC
• Outdoor Recreation Council of BC
  • Working in a Good Way: A best practices guide for engaging and working with Indigenous Peoples on trails and outdoor recreation projects in British Columbia
• Small Business BC
  • Strategies to Start and Grow a Tourism Business 
• Tourism Industry Association of Canada

Also see our Policy Commons database for reports from research institutes, think tanks, etc. Start with a search in Policy Commons for either of the phrases: "indigenous tourism" OR "aboriginal tourism"

Google searching

Search tips for Google, Google Scholar, DuckDuckGo, and other search engines

Google Scholar

Use Google Scholar to find articles from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web.  Also look at "cited by" beneath an article reference to find who has cited that article. To search for words in the "title" of an article or a report, use: intitle:

• intitle:aboriginal   intitle:British Columbia   intitle:tourism
   
• intitle:aboriginal   intitle:Canada   intitle:tourism

Google

• (aboriginal OR indigenous) (tourism OR ecotourism OR heritage tourism OR cultural tourism) (BC OR British Columbia)

Writing for business and citing help

For writing support services, check: 

• Business writing and Academic writing resources
• Citing Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Keepers
• Writing Services Offered by the Research Commons.
• Upcoming workshops
• For citing help, see the SFU Library guide: Citation Guide for Business Sources.