Pania's Pānui

There are numerous Waitangi Day commemorations happening around the country this weekend - we will be in Waitangi and will catch up with many of you there. The festival programme for the weekend at Waitangi Treaty Grounds can be found here.

The date of the General Election was announced this week, and New Zealand will be going to the polls on Saturday 23 September. We will be looking at parties' tourism policies over the next few months but as we are aware, tourism doesn't exist in isolation as other policies impact our industry: freshwater, immigration, transport, regional development, environment, education, and economic development to name but a few!

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)

Update from Destination Kaikoura "we’ve had a great couple of weeks with visitors returning, the Caledonia Sky cruise ship visiting again, some good video/TV show promotion and the Crusaders Rugby team helping out in the community. The town is buzzing and we anticipate seeing more visitors return as word gets out that we’re back in business."
88% of tourism activity/attractions are open
88% of retail, café and general services are open
78% of accommodation providers are open.

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

New Zealand was just 61 visitors away from reaching the milestone of 3.5 million international visitors for 2016. There were 3,499,939 short-term arrivals for 2016, up 12% or an additional 368,000 visitors on the previous year. This was the biggest ever increase in international visitors for a single year.

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.

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.

Are there any clever solutions to New Zealand's tourist boom?

Others wonder why the industry is making such heavy weather of a problem that comes down to simple supply and demand. Mike Simm, who chairs the Waitangi National Trust management board and serves on the Conservation Authority, calls it “economics 101”.

“Demand is regulated by pricing, and that’s the reality we have to face up to. I think it’s the reality the industry is waiting for. They expect it.”

He believes the pricing system introduced at Waitangi last year holds lessons for areas of the DoC estate where overcrowding is a problem. Read more here.

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.

Business Calendar

Ngāi Tahu Tourism: leveraging cultural values to generate eco-tourism success

Ngāi Tahu Tourism is one of New Zealand’s premier tourism operators with an extensive portfolio of iconic eco-tourism and adventure experiences. They recently won the He kai kei aku ringa award for Māori Excellence in Export at the New Zealand International Business Awards 2016. Ngāi Tahu Tourism CEO, Quinton Hall, speaks here about the award and the approach, values and tikanga that underpin and uniquely define Māori business. Read more here.

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.

UPDATE FROM WHALE WATCH KAIKOURA
Progress is being made on repairs to the Kaikōura Marina and we continue to switch between using a berth and our modified trailer unit for launching our vessel Tohorā, this is due to tidal restrictions and repair work due to the uplift of the coastline by +1.0m. Launching from the trailer is how we loaded our passengers in the old days of whale watching.

Please note that currently, available tour times are based around the tide times on the day and may differ from the tour times originally advertised. For an update on the tour times available please contact our Customer Service team directly either by email on res@whalewatch.co.nz or phone +64 3 319 6767 or free phone 0800 655 121 (within NZ) and they will be able to help you with your inquiry. Read more here.

UPDATE FROM WAITANGI TREATY GROUNDS
This year the Waitangi Day celebrations at the Treaty Ground are a family friendly event, free from smoking, alcohol and fizzy drinks. The Waitangi Treaty Grounds has partnered with Fit for Life to implement a fizz-free policy for all food-stalls at this year’s Waitangi Day celebrations and with community owned company CBEC to reduce waste.

Waitangi Day at the Treaty Grounds starts at 5am with the traditional Dawn Service in Te Whare Rūnanga, the carved meeting house. Throughout the day there is continuous entertainment at three different areas of the grounds: Upper Treaty Grounds, Waka Stage and the Sports Field opposite the Treaty Grounds. Some 150 market stalls have art, craft, clothing and a large variety of food for sale. Children’s activities include bouncy castles, kids racing cars and sports games. The day will finish at 5.30pm after the Royal NZ Navy Beat retreat at the flagpole. Read more here.

UPDATE FROM TOURISM NEW ZEALAND
Tourism New Zealand’s first single region marketing campaign kicks off this week encouraging people from Melbourne to visit Northland in the autumn.

The campaign – ‘Every day a different journey in Northland’ – is the first Tourism New Zealand campaign focussed on using a single region to test whether it can influence a shift in traditional travel patterns. The campaign will run in Melbourne from late January to mid-March. Campaign channels include Facebook and outdoor advertising showcasing iconic Northland scenes such as the Bay of Islands, Hokianga and Matapouri. The campaign will be backed up by trade and PR activity.

The centrepiece of the campaign will be a giant mural of Tāne Mahuta by New Zealand born artist Monique Barnett. Read more here.