Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 31, Number 3, 1 March 2014 — Tourism through a Native perspective [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Tourism through a Native perspective

/A no'ai kakou . . . On /\ Feb. 6, 2014, the \ Board of Trustees Ē \ voted to support / \OHA's partnership with the American Indian Alaska Native Tourism Association (AIANTA) to participate in the 2014 ITB Berlin Travel Trade Show. This action is part of an effort to provide Native Hawaiian beneficiaries with greater self-sufflciency by giving them

greater control over marketing their history and culture intemationally and bring about a stronger, more authentic Native Hawaiian identity in the minds of travelers around the world. The knowledge brought back from ITB Berlin will also assist our beneflciaries to develop authentic Hawaiian cultural travel experiences to market in the future. Partnering with AIANĪA I have served on the AIANTA board of directors since Feb. 12, 2013. AIANTA is a 501 (c)(3) nonproflt association formed in 1999 to help federally recognized tribes market their unique stories to visitors and to facilitate the ease with whieh travelers ean explore Indian Country. The association is made up of member tribes from the following regions: Eastem, Plains, Midwest, Southwest and Alaska. With my participation, the Paciflc region ean now be represented. Eaeh March, AIANTA sponsors an expansive Native American Indian booth located within the United States Pavilion at ITB Berlin, the world's leading travel trade show with more than 170,000 visitors, including 1 10,000 trade visitors and over 10,086 exhibitors from 180 eountries. The Pavilion attracts large crowds of participants and hundreds of intemational travel agents. AIANĪA invitation to 1TB Berlin: March 5-9, 2014, in Berlin, Germany Thanks to my close working relationship with AIANTA, OHA has been invited to share a portion of AIANTA's booth space in their Pavilion at ITB Berlin. Until

now, Native Hawaiians were the only Native people in America not participating in this prestigious event. Future AIANĪA partnership opportunities AIANTA President Sherry Rupert, who also serves as the Executive Director of the State of Nevada Indian Commission, was appointed this past June to the U.S. Department of Commerce Travel and Tourism

Advisory Board. Rupert's appointment helps to further strengthen AIANTA's working relationship with the U.S. Commerce Department. Rupert is also a Benton Paiute tribal member. The Obama administration, through agencies such as the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, the U.S. Department of Commerce and the National Park Service, is working to promote Native American culture and arts and to demonstrate the contributions they have made to the United States. AIANTA recently worked with the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service (NPS) to develop a historical book on the 20,000 Ameriean Indians who fought in the Civil War. A similar historical project could be put together for Hawaii's National Parks. The advantages of developing partnerships with these federal agencies are enormous. Hawaii has National Parks that need more federal funding. Being able tell our story through our National Parks, like other Native peoples throughout the United States have done, is only one of the many potential advantages of participating in ITB Berlin with AIANTA. Both the National Park Service and the Department of Interior have signiflcant funding set aside for the promotion of Native American projects. Why should Native Hawaiians be left out? Aloha Ke Akua. ■ Interested inHawaiian issuesand OHA ? Please visit my website at www.rowena akana.org for more information or email me at rowenaa@oha.org.

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Rūwena Akana Trustee, At-large