Reaching for tourism revenues: increasingly, native-owned enterprises are venturing into the visitor industry.

• Author: Richardson, Jeffrey
• Position: Includes related article - Industry Overview

Slowly and relatively recently, Alaska's Native regional and village corporations have started investigating tourism, the state's third largest industry. Those venturing into the tourism arena are finding the road to profitability long and sometimes meandering.

Ten years ago, the visitor industry was a source of suspicion and anxiety to most Native corporations. Many shareholders, generally mistrusting outsiders, feared an influx of tourists would spark competition for fish and game, threatening the foundation of local subsistence livelihoods without returning sufficient value to compensate for the material and cultural loss.

Lack of information about how tourism functions and preoccupation with other threats and opportunities also contributed to indifference toward the visitor industry.

Now, all that has changed. Although investment in the state's visitor infrastructure by Native corporations and individuals still represents only a fraction of the industry overall, tourism is a hot topic in Native corporation board rooms and in Bush communities throughout Alaska.

The visitor industry has become a major concern of Cape Fox Corp., a village corporation that operates a cultural tour in the Native community of Saxman and recently opened a hotel in nearby Ketchikan. According to Bridget Sears, manager of the corporation's tour division, Cape Fox's entry into the visitor industry reflects the conviction that preserving culture and generating tourist dollars can be compatible.

"Tourists have pulled the community together and given them something to work for, something for the future. It is partially the livelihood of the village," Sears explains. "They have thousands of people every month during the season who are interested in who they are. It meshes very well."

The hotel, managed by Westmark Hotels, opened last fall. About the Saxman tour, begun about four years ago, Sears says, "We're still working out the bugs. It's struggling, but it will mature." She adds that although Cape Fox discovered that profitability in tourism can be elusive, she is optimistic about future returns from the industry.

Perhaps spurred in part by the initial Native entries into tourism, interest in the industry has grown rapidly among Native peoples in recent years. In response to a flood of inquiries, the Community Enterprise Development Corp., a rural economic development agency long involved in fisheries cooperatives and Bush retail stores, created a new subsidiary in 1987 to focus on the industry's opportunities. Called Alaska Village Tours, the firm was charged with helping rural people develop tourism enterprises suited to local needs and expectations.

"We had to start from the ground up," says Ann Campbell, president of Alaska Village Tours. "A lot of people were calling in -- individuals, councils, corporations. One of the most common questions was, 'Should we get involved in this? What would be a product that would make sense for us out here? Is that something we could do?'"

Campbell notes the interest in tourism continues to build. "Communities that even three years ago were not interested in talking about it are now at least willing to look at it," she adds.

According to Campbell, the aim of Alaska Village Tours is to provide assessment, marketing and management assistance, as well as training, to help develop local visitor industry opportunities. She says one of the company's biggest challenges is clearing up some common misconceptions about tourism, including exaggerated assumptions that luring visitors provides a quick fix to economic woes.

To address such issues, tourism has become a frequent centerpiece of seminars and workshops on rural economic development. In recent years, several new rural visitor developments have emerged, some showing promise; others have quickly derailed on sharp learning curves. Many more enterprises are being considered, with studies and plans funded by state grant programs.

The increased availability of tourism information helped to influence the philosophical turnaround. A frequent message at the seminars is that local people can indeed control the numbers of visitors to their communities and the tourists' activities. Rural residents are discovering means to tailor tourism development to the level of local ability, interest and public support.

Nudged by Need. But while the ability to assert local...