Pania's Pānui

NZ Māori Tourism had our AGM in Wellington this week. You can read our 2016 Annual Report here. If you would like a hard copy, please email lee@maoritourism.co.nz

Hoki-mai, Simon, and myself will be in Hawke's Bay next week for meetings and events that are taking place around the Te Matatini Festival, including the Taniwha Dragon Economic Summit - we will no doubt see quite a few of you there.

As always, if there is anything you need help with for your Māori tourism business, we are merely a phone call or email away.

Nga mihi, na,

Pania and the team at NZ Māori Tourism

PS - Is your Māori tourism experience listed on our website? If not, reply to this email and we'll get your business listed straight away.

Te Nama o te wiki (Number of the week)

For November 2016, compared with November 2015:
•   Total international guest nights were up 12 percent to 1.6 million. Domestic guest nights were down 0.9 percent to 1.7 million.
•   North Island guest nights were up 4.7 percent, and South Island guest nights were up 5.6 percent.
•   Eleven of the 12 regional areas had more guest nights.
•   All four accommodation types had more guest nights.

Kei te mōhio rānei koe? (Did you know?)

Normally at this time our Māori Tourism Quarterly would be available for you to read. The delay is due to the November 2016 earthquake, which badly affected Statistics New Zealand's operations. A number of their tourism-related datasets have been published late, and the dataset that has been delayed the longest is the one, based on the International Visitor Survey, which shows the number of visitors to Māori activities and experiences. As soon as the data is released, we will have our analysis to you very soon after. In the meantime, you can read the previous issue here.

Below are a selection of recent Instagram posts from around Aoteaora New Zealand using the hashtag #kiaora - we encourage manuhiri (visitors) to use #kiaora to showcase their experience with Māori tourism.

Introducing QRC Taitokerau Culinary

The Culinary Institute of New Zealand has been purchased by QRC Tai Tokerau Resort College and will reopen the premises in early 2017 to deliver in-demand cookery qualifications. Regular intakes will be taken throughout the year. Read more here.

Campaign stops New York commuters in their tracks

Thousands of commuters in New York's Penn Station are stopping in their tracks to check out a display promoting a holiday in New Zealand.

Penn Station is the busiest travel hub in America, with around 650,000 people using it each day.

"The station is a loud, bustling space where people are in a rush, traditional haka performances by a kapa haka group are literally stopping people in their tracks," says Bjoern Spreitzer, General Manager Americas and Europe.

"We have people based at the display greeting and talking to commuters about New Zealand and what it has to offer." Read more here.

Project Grants from Callaghan

Is your business new to, or trying to expand your R&D? A Project Grant can help you take on larger or more challenging R&D.

How can the grant help?

The Project Grant is designed to help you:

Build your R&D expertise by giving your business an opportunity to push the boundaries and uncover new scientific or technical knowledge and understanding
Break new ground in an R&D project for the development of new or substantially improved devices, products, processes, systems or services
Develop your business into a stable and substantial R&D performer
Grow your investment in R&D.

Taniwha Dragon Summit - 20/21 February, Hastings

Ngāti Kahungunu Iwi is hosting the Taniwha Dragon Economic Summit next week. It will provide an opportunity to highlight successful relationships, while also providing an opportunity for new relationships to be formed.

The format for the summit will be a café type conference conversation with 250 people in attendance. They will be bringing together Maori, Hawkes Bay businesses and their Chinese partners to discuss growing relationships, confidence in the markets and the social spin‑offs that accrue through these evolving partnerships. Register here.

Training and development

Staff training and development is fundamental to business growth. It can help sales, save staff hours, create more efficient production methods, improve technical systems and more.

Learn about some of the options available for your staff to develop skills, as well as grow or improve your business.

Business Calendar

Use this tool to quickly find opportunities, training, compliance dates and related tasks from across government. You can search by region, date, and category.

Nga Pānui (Notices) from members of NZ Māori Tourism

If you have an announcement you'd like here, please email amy@maoritourism.co.nz for it to be included in the next edition of Newsline. It can be anything from a job position, exhibition opening, videos or photos featuring your business, new Māori tourism products, etc.