Empowering the First Nations Tourism Industry: Co-Designed and Community-Led Disaster Resilience Resources and Workshops
Tracks
Room 1 - Southport 2 & 3
| Tuesday, July 28, 2026 |
| 1:50 PM - 2:10 PM |
| Room 1 - Southport 2 & 3 |
Overview
Amanda Newbery & Cassandra Packer, Articulous
Details
Three Key Learnings
1. Importance of adopting a co-design approach that is community led and tailored to each local region. Co-defining the opportunities and challenges, co-creating and co-testing the resources and program has made it more effective and useable for the First Nations tourism industry.
2. The inclusion of storytelling as part of the resources and workshops has been critical, with mob sharing stories with mob helping to build capability and empowerment.
3. Importance of using First Nations voices, stories, images and artwork in all resources and the workshops helped to ensure inclusion and cultural safety.
Speaker
Amanda Newbery
Articulous
Empowering the First Nations tourism industry: co-designed and community-led disaster resilience resources and workshops
Abstract
With growing demand for First Nations visitor experiences, tourism offers increasing economic opportunities for communities. But given Queensland is Australia’s most disaster-prone state and the disproportionate impact disasters can have on Indigenous peoples, the project aims to build disaster resilience within the First Nations tourism industry.
Articulous partnered with the Queensland Government’s First Nations Our Country Advisory Service (OCAS) to co-design disaster-resilience resources and workshops to build capacity with Indigenous tourism operators, businesses and corporations.
Recognising First Nations communities’ resilience, the community-led approach co-defined, co-created and co-tested the program with First Nations stakeholders to identify key disaster risks, lived experiences in disaster preparedness, recovery and resilience and cultural considerations to continually refine the program.
Collective cultural insights guided creation of a step-by-step disaster checklist featuring Indigenous artwork and messaging. Storytelling was incorporated in videos, with mob sharing first-hand experiences about visitor and cultural safety, preparation steps and crisis communication tips.
The workshops and resources have evolved throughout the project in line with feedback and focus groups co-testing influencing content, topics covered, imagery and activities. Sessions were also tailored to individual participants and regions with an emphasis on disaster scenario group discussions. Over 200 First Nations participants have attended 9 workshops across the state from the Bunay Mountains in SEQ to Barcaldine in central Queensland to the Torres Strait Islands in the far north to date.
Outcomes include disaster capacity building with more than 200 First Nations workshop participants, with resources to be shared with a wider audience once accessible online and via First Nations networks. 80% of feedback has been highly positive, with participants reporting workshops were culturally safe, identified planning gaps and would them plan for, respond to, recover from and communicate in a disaster. The resources are also easily transferable to other regions.
Articulous partnered with the Queensland Government’s First Nations Our Country Advisory Service (OCAS) to co-design disaster-resilience resources and workshops to build capacity with Indigenous tourism operators, businesses and corporations.
Recognising First Nations communities’ resilience, the community-led approach co-defined, co-created and co-tested the program with First Nations stakeholders to identify key disaster risks, lived experiences in disaster preparedness, recovery and resilience and cultural considerations to continually refine the program.
Collective cultural insights guided creation of a step-by-step disaster checklist featuring Indigenous artwork and messaging. Storytelling was incorporated in videos, with mob sharing first-hand experiences about visitor and cultural safety, preparation steps and crisis communication tips.
The workshops and resources have evolved throughout the project in line with feedback and focus groups co-testing influencing content, topics covered, imagery and activities. Sessions were also tailored to individual participants and regions with an emphasis on disaster scenario group discussions. Over 200 First Nations participants have attended 9 workshops across the state from the Bunay Mountains in SEQ to Barcaldine in central Queensland to the Torres Strait Islands in the far north to date.
Outcomes include disaster capacity building with more than 200 First Nations workshop participants, with resources to be shared with a wider audience once accessible online and via First Nations networks. 80% of feedback has been highly positive, with participants reporting workshops were culturally safe, identified planning gaps and would them plan for, respond to, recover from and communicate in a disaster. The resources are also easily transferable to other regions.
Biography
Amanda is an international award-winning engagement and communications expert who has led multiple ground-breaking projects. Widely recognised for her ability to quickly understand attitudes, perceptions and markets, Amanda leads a team of senior professionals at Articulous, the award-winning company she founded.
Amanda is an international award-winning engagement and communications expert who has led multiple ground-breaking projects. Widely recognised for her ability to quickly understand attitudes, perceptions and markets, Amanda leads a team of senior professionals at Articulous, the award-winning company she founded.
For more than 25+ years, she has been a trusted advisor for some of Australia’s leading global companies and government departments. Amanda is a high-energy facilitator who can inspire innovation and deftly bring people to consensus. Her passion makes her a highly sought-after speaker.
A former News Limited journalist, Amanda is a regular on the ABC Radio’s Spin Cycle program, and was a weekly panellist on the Hidden Persuaders program for 16 years until 2022, where she dissected the latest trends in communications and marketing. She has also been a university lecturer, tutor and academic supervisor in communications.
She is a recognised expert in community engagement, having co-developed the industry standards for Australasia, co-developed the Queensland Government guidelines for engagement, and being one of only 14 licensed trainers for the Engagement Institute (member of the International Association for Public Participation)
The global IAP2 Community Engagement Model was co-developed by Amanda and has been adopted internationally. It identifies how and when to use organisation-led, community-led and shared leadership approaches to decision making for organisations and democracies globally.
Ms Cassandra Packer
Senior Consultant
Articulous
Empowering the First Nations Tourism Industry: Co-Designed and Community-Led Disaster Resilience Resources and Workshops
Abstract
With growing demand for First Nations visitor experiences, tourism offers increasing economic opportunities for communities. But given Queensland is Australia’s most disaster-prone state and the disproportionate impact disasters can have on Indigenous peoples, the project aims to build disaster resilience within the First Nations tourism industry.
Articulous partnered with the Queensland Government’s First Nations Our Country Advisory Service (OCAS) to co-design disaster-resilience resources and workshops to build capacity with Indigenous tourism operators, businesses and corporations.
Recognising First Nations communities’ resilience, the community-led approach co-defined, co-created and co-tested the program with First Nations stakeholders to identify key disaster risks, lived experiences in disaster preparedness, recovery and resilience and cultural considerations to continually refine the program.
Collective cultural insights guided creation of a step-by-step disaster checklist featuring Indigenous artwork and messaging. Storytelling was incorporated in videos, with mob sharing first-hand experiences about visitor and cultural safety, preparation steps and crisis communication tips.
The workshops and resources have evolved throughout the project in line with feedback and focus groups co-testing influencing content, topics covered, imagery and activities. Sessions were also tailored to individual participants and regions with an emphasis on disaster scenario group discussions. Over 200 First Nations participants have attended 9 workshops across the state from the Bunay Mountains in SEQ to Barcaldine in central Queensland to the Torres Strait Islands in the far north to date.
Outcomes include disaster capacity building with more than 200 First Nations workshop participants, with resources to be shared with a wider audience once accessible online and via First Nations networks. 80% of feedback has been highly positive, with participants reporting workshops were culturally safe, identified planning gaps and would them plan for, respond to, recover from and communicate in a disaster. The resources are also easily transferable to other regions.
Articulous partnered with the Queensland Government’s First Nations Our Country Advisory Service (OCAS) to co-design disaster-resilience resources and workshops to build capacity with Indigenous tourism operators, businesses and corporations.
Recognising First Nations communities’ resilience, the community-led approach co-defined, co-created and co-tested the program with First Nations stakeholders to identify key disaster risks, lived experiences in disaster preparedness, recovery and resilience and cultural considerations to continually refine the program.
Collective cultural insights guided creation of a step-by-step disaster checklist featuring Indigenous artwork and messaging. Storytelling was incorporated in videos, with mob sharing first-hand experiences about visitor and cultural safety, preparation steps and crisis communication tips.
The workshops and resources have evolved throughout the project in line with feedback and focus groups co-testing influencing content, topics covered, imagery and activities. Sessions were also tailored to individual participants and regions with an emphasis on disaster scenario group discussions. Over 200 First Nations participants have attended 9 workshops across the state from the Bunay Mountains in SEQ to Barcaldine in central Queensland to the Torres Strait Islands in the far north to date.
Outcomes include disaster capacity building with more than 200 First Nations workshop participants, with resources to be shared with a wider audience once accessible online and via First Nations networks. 80% of feedback has been highly positive, with participants reporting workshops were culturally safe, identified planning gaps and would them plan for, respond to, recover from and communicate in a disaster. The resources are also easily transferable to other regions.
Biography
Cass Packer is a proud Dja Dja Wurrung woman. A passionate storyteller committed to making a lasting impact through genuine and meaningful engagement. She believes that when done right, engagement can empower communities and shape better futures. Cass has worked across multidisciplinary teams within Australia and New Zealand, delivering communications and engagement services across infrastructure, policy, social wellbeing, environmental contaminated and remediation, and tourism projects.
Cass supported First Nations disaster resilience workshop and resources for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tourism operators, in partnership with the Queensland Government’s Our Country Advisory Services team.
