First Workshop of the Series: the Arctic Region

During the first workshop of the series which took place in November 2007 in Canada, participants from the Arctic region worked with individual computers in small groups to examine existing reference websites, and exchange lessons learned on their own website development and management practices.

To facilitate the exchange of experiences, participants produced quality indicators in three important areas: biodiversity, e-marketing and technological tools. Those indicators were then used in a self-assessment of their websites. Based on these self-assessments, participants worked on a plan to enhance their websites. Dr. Jacques Chevalier, Dr. Sylvie Blangy and Olivier Pessin acted as facilitators and developed methodologies and techniques specifically for indigenous people of the Arctic region, using aboriginal design templates and socialization techniques based on the Social Analysis System (SAS2).

The resulting toolbox for indigenous communities to design and manage their tourism websites in support of the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity was incorporated into a "Wheel" design. It includes:

(a) Technological tools to enhance the capacities of indigenous tourism websites
(b) Evaluation checklists for the effectiveness of websites in promoting and supporting cultural and biological diversity and in marketing indigenous sustainable tourism products (quality criteria refer to links to Mother Earth, use of indigenous languages, etc);
(c) A list of functions of tourism websites, with examples from indigenous products;
(d) E-Marketing techniques.

The summary of the workshop can be found in the latest edition of Pachamama, online at: http://www.cbd.int/doc/newsletters/news-8j-02-02-low-en.pdf. The toolbox and final report are available on line at: http://tourism.cbd.int/events.shtml.