The best tourism businesses deliver authentic, moving experiences, creating memories that last long after the holiday ends. They come from a deeper place, a place of connection and of stories.

It's how Rosanna Angus' business, Oolin Sunday Island Cultural Tours, was born along with a desire to build a future for her people, create economic sovereignty and share what has always belonged them.

Based in Cygnet Bay (Bardi country), north of Broome on Western Australia's Dampier Peninsula, OolinSunday Island Cultural Tours navigates the planet's largest tropical tides as it cruises through Jawi country, through King Sounds Middle Passage to Sunday Island, telling the story of the 'Tide Drifters'.

The history of Ewuny (Sunday Island) is little known. Originally a sea cucumber and pearling station relying on Aboriginal labour and Indigenous knowledge of the reefs, Sunday Island Mission was established in 1899and closed in the early 1970s.

The tour follows the journey of Angus' ancestors in those pre-Mission days. On rafts made from mangrove wood, they would navigate the constant shifting waters and whirlpools metres wide to hunt for fish and trade on the mainland.

Her tour ran aground before it set sail when the pandemic struck. In 2021, it started in earnest, and like the king tides, it keeps rising.

In 2023, Angus claimed gold in the Top Tour Guide category at the Australian Tourism Awards, a national accolade that's validated everything her business represents.

"I love it, it's beautiful and I love bringing people to Jawicountry," Angus says.

"Aboriginal tourism is the top of the list of what visitors want to do when they come to WA.

"Tourism is not only a business opportunity but an opportunity to build relationships, network, create immersive experiences, build partnerships, bridge the gaps and provide a level of cultural understanding."

Angus has partnered with Cygnet Bay Pearls who manage the bookings for Oolin Sunday Island Tours, and with Australian Geographic Tours for whom she runs a three-night, women-only Bardi and Jawi cultural experience.

Angus is possibly one of the most over-qualified tourism business owners in the Indigenous tourism sector.

When she established herself as the Dampier Peninsula's first Indigenous woman owner-operator guide, Angus already held a Diploma in Primary Education and a Bachelor of Applied Science in Health Care Administration and Management.

In December 2025, she completed an MBA fromAdelaide University.

The eldest of six, Angus, a proud Bardi Jawi woman,grew up in One Arm Point on the Dampier Peninsula, with an ingrained responsibility to care for her family.

At 13, she was sent to boarding school in Perth, leaving at 16 to return home and help Kooljaman at Cape Leveque ready itself for tourism.

"The community decided they wanted tourism. There was 10 of us, and we'd jump on the tray back and go to work building paperbark cabins and doing landscaping, that sort of thing, I loved it," Angus recounts.

Closed since COVID, Kooljaman (accommodation and camping) was Angus' first taste of tourism.

At 18, she became a single mum, moved herself to Darwin with her baby to study and work. Since then, her career has spanned primary school teaching, healthcare and outreach work, volunteer work and she's served on numerous councils, committees and boards, all as a single mother of three. Nowadays, she counts six grandchildren.

To Angus, individual success means little without broader systemic change.

She served on the board of the Western Australian Indigenous Tourism Council (WAITOC) board from 2017 to 2023, an organisation created to support Indigenous tourism businesses.

She has also been a Corporate Director of the Bardi and Jawi Prescribed Body since 2008, and a board member of the Kooljaman Land Aboriginal Corporation since 2007.

Angus sits on the current board of Tourism Western Australia where her expertise can help shape policy and strategy to grow authentic Aboriginal tourism.

"Tourism is the vehicle, an enabler, and business can be all shapes and forms in tourism," Angus says.

"We are bringing kids into the industry, some are not confident talking so we're showing them that there's opportunities to work in the back end with marketing, for example."

Through the First Nations Tourism Mentoring Program, Angus actively shares what she's learnt in business. Rather than focus on her own individual empire, Angus is helping build industry capacity.

A repeated theme throughout Angus' career is that she has never been satisfied with a single stream of impact.

In 2025, she launched Lanje, a skincare line she developed in partnership with Dr Pia Winberg at PhychoHealth and in collaboration Marine Bioproducts Cooperative Research Centre (MBCRC). The Lanjeproducts use pearl oyster, Kakadu Plum, and seaweed extracts sourced from Bardi and Jawi country.

Her Indigenous entrepreneurship combines culture and commerce, tradition and innovation, and personal success and community benefit. She's building businesses that strengthen cultural practice and employ locals while attracting international acclaim.

The tides that once carried her forebears continue to swell with new possibilities.

Angus understands that the most powerful businesses are those rooted in place, sustained by purpose, and create opportunities for future generations.