Business planning amidst a global pandemic

By Henok Alemneh, 2nd year MDP student

One of my major tasks during my field placement with the Pimachiowin Aki Corporation was writing a business plan for an Indigenous owned and controlled tourism facility and experience in the Pimachiowin Aki World Heritage Site (PA). The time we are in is probably not the best time to start a tourism business. It is rather a time when many of those who are already in it are being severely impacted by the COVID-19 induced health and economic crisis. Some funding organizations have also shifted their focus towards recovery and stimulus grant funding for existing businesses affected by the crisis. However, I found it to be a good time to plan for a potential establishment of a business that could possibly be in a better position to cope in case of a future crisis like the one we are in. Planning amidst this pandemic allowed me to practically see some of the business risks that come with it. There is a lot that a potential business can learn from the way those who are already being impacted are dealing with the crisis. Communities such as the Pimachiowin Aki First Nations, who are home to a World Heritage Site with immense cultural and natural tourism potentials, can think of various innovative and strategic ways to minimize impacts due to similar potential challenges in the future.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Indigenous tourism sector in Canada was showing enhanced growth and the sector also had a significant economic footprint in Manitoba. The trend showed a promising future then, but nowadays the industry is pretty much at a standstill. Tourism by its nature is largely dependent on travel from one place to another and on the people-to-people and people-to-environment interactions involved with it. Such characteristic of the industry has placed it among the most impacted by COVID-19. International and local travel have largely been restricted for months and people have been asked and, in some cases, required to stay away from each other. Although some places are relaxing restrictions recently, we are also seeing some places rolling back restrictions due to the recent spike in infections. Generally, it is not clearly known when things could fully go back to normal as that may depend on the availability of vaccine and or therapeutics.

Regardless of uncertainties looming over its future, many of us, based on tourism’s history of bouncing back after crisis, hope that it will eventually recover. But we don’t know when that will happen. The various ways governments, associations and others are trying to support and speed up the recovery also give some hope in addition to the hope for availability of a vaccine. In the business planning project, we anticipated that people would most likely prefer to travel within their region, especially in the early stages of tourism’s recovery and that appears to be the case with places such as Pinawa recently experiencing an influx of Manitoba visitors. Government agencies such as Destination Canada are also encouraging interprovincial domestic travel.

Drive-in tourists would be targeted due to the anticipation that many people may replace their international travel plans with road trips within Canada. It is also expected that going forward many visitors will be more cautious about hygiene and social distancing. Therefore, the proposed business has been planned to operate in accordance with up-to-date public health guidelines. The economic challenges may also make visitors more price sensitive for some time. As many students are not having the opportunity to travel during their school holidays, we may also see a growth in domestic friends and family travelers. The business planning activity has been undertaken with these and related expectations in mind. The bottom line is that the COVID crisis would bring changes in the market. The business planning project thus required planning and preparing to navigate the new changes in the market environment. In order to minimize potential damages from such crisis in the future, the proposed business would put in place crisis planning and management strategies. Product diversification and creative marketing would be some of the focus areas both in the short-term and long-term. Because dependency on tourism may result in a significant impact during a crisis like COVID, it would also be crucial for communities such as PA First Nations to diversify their economies. The proposed business could be launched after COVID-19 is fully subdued, but the lessons obtained during the planning stage should be carried along as another crisis may happen at any time.

 

Remotely connected with the land that gives life

By Henok Alemneh, 2nd year student

I first found out about the Pimachiowin Aki World Heritage Site from my academic advisor when I was in my very first semester in the MDP program. I have since been building relationships and working with the Pimachiowin Aki Corporation (PAC), which is a non-profit charity organization mandated to coordinate and integrate actions to protect and present the outstanding universal value of a boreal forest Anishinaabe cultural landscape. Through PAC, the First Nations of Bloodvein River, Little Grand Rapids, Pauingassi and Poplar River and the provinces of Manitoba and Ontario, collaboratively manage Pimachiowin Aki World Heritage Site. Pimachiowin Aki, which is Anishinaabemowin (Ojibwe) for “the land that gives life”, is one of the world’s few UNESCO World Heritage sites recognized for both its cultural and natural values.

In my current field placement opportunity with PAC, I have been tasked to work on two main projects. The first project has been to undertake a research and present options and recommendations to the PAC Board of Directors, for consideration by the Pimachiowin Aki First Nations, for an Indigenous-owned and controlled economic development corporation with a mission to develop and deliver a for-profit Indigenous tourism facility and experience in the World Heritage Site.

This research project has now been completed, thanks to the continuous inputs and guidance from my supervisors Bruce Bremner, PAC Board Co-Chair & Alison Haugh, PAC Executive Director. Conducting research, report writing, and teamwork are among the key practical experiences I gained through this project. 

The second project I am currently working on focuses on proposing a business plan in accordance with the recommendations of the research project. Once the business plan is finalized, it would be presented to PAC Board who would make decisions on the next steps. So far, the field placement activities have provided me with opportunities to apply some of what I learned in the MDP program, particularly through Research and Business Planning courses.

Unlike my previous field placement that involved travel and in-person community engagement, the COVID-19 pandemic we are in has now forced many of us to work from home. In my view, traveling out to the outstanding Pimachiowin Aki World Heritage Site, getting the opportunity to engage with some community members and connecting with the land and culture would be irreplaceable experiences. However, the stories I get to hear and read, the interactions I have with my supervisors, the articles I reference, and the reflections I make in the papers are helping me connect remotely with Pimachiowin Aki, the land that gives life, until the time and opportunity to go in person arises.

Do what you can: Building communities in whatever way make sense

By Stephen Penner, 2nd year MDP student

The summer was spent reflecting on the question of development: respectful development, requested development. When to act, what to do, and how to do development.  It was spent struggling with the larger question of “what is the place for a non-Indigenous person to work in Indigenous communities” and the smaller challenge of appropriateness of addressing requests made by Yup’ik community members. The short answer to the broader question, is that while on placement for the program, one must act in accordance to the program and use the lessons learned in the MDP to facilitate respectful approaches and answers. 

Community general store in Alaska

My first request was to create a business plan for a Yup’ik community based commercial enterprise. I called upon my learnings from the course in Indigenous Business Planning and my group work project from the MDP Capstone course. The plan was to create an Anchorage based food distribution company as a division of the commercial enterprise.  Allowing the community to take advantage of the preferential treatment that minority owned businesses receive when bidding on contracts. I spent two days in Anchorage with the principal, meeting with potential partners and entities that were going to be critical in executing the plan.

Fish processing

The second request was to build an “un-corruptible” intra-community wellness agency to act in support of the Qunasvik initiative whose focus is suicide reduction.  The objective was to create a Yup’ik based agency that could act, support and build protective factors in the 5 communities that the Qunasvik was active. I knew the development challenge would be to understand the lived experience of the Yup’ik and translate that into the model.

Choosing a Co-op model, I created an Indigenous structure that included important cultural features to the Yup’ik that needed to written into the by-laws. Based on the Qasgig (the traditional meeting place of the Yup’ik) I outlined the reasons, rationale and starting structure of a not-for-profit (501(c)) model.  Reviewing the plans with a Co-op developer at the University of Alaska Anchorage, I received his blessing that this model as executable. I was able to complete the proposal prior to my departure.  A review of the funding structures and building an understanding of successful prevention models allowed a path to be suggested as a way to restore agency to Yup’ik communities.

 One summer, two models, one unforgettable experience and many lessons later, I am left with the ongoing question that I started with.  The only answer that I have is that when asked to deliver a project, bring the best of what you understand of the community and the best of what you can offer as a “gift” to the community. You may use such opportunities to facilitate “the good life.”