Empowering the First Nations Tourism Industry: Co-Designed and Community-Led Disaster Resilience Resources and Workshops
Tracks
Gold Coast Ballroom
| Tuesday, July 28, 2026 |
| 1:50 PM - 2:10 PM |
| Gold Coast Room |
Overview
Sue Monk & 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
Sue Monk
Group Executive
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
Sue Monk has more than 25 years’ experience as a crisis communication and engagement specialist. Working at communication company Articulous, Sue has developed a range of disaster resilience resources, crisis communication toolkits and training programs.
She co-designed Australia’s first Small Business Disaster Hub, an online one-stop-shop for businesses to manage a crisis. She’s worked closely with the tourism sector, developing Queensland’s Tourism Crisis Communication Toolkit and delivering over 50 resilience workshops.
In partnership with the Queensland Government’s Our Country Advisory Service, Sue has been delivering a series of First Nations disaster resilience workshops for First Nations tourism operators and corporations.
Ms Cassandra Packer
Senior Consultant (proud Dja Dja Wurrung woman)
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
