NZ tourism leads and learns from Asia
We have quite a lot to learn from our Asian neighbours. Its scale and diversity make Asia an incredible environment for nurturing innovation, and New Zealand businesspeople and entrepreneurs are well-placed if they can get insights from their industry counterparts in Asia.
But there are areas in which New Zealand is ahead of the curve.
It was with a real sense of pride that I met a group of Southeast Asia entrepreneurs we were hosting at the NZ Tourism Awards last month as they capped off a week of learning in Auckland, Rotorua and Christchurch. What we heard from these leaders and trendsetters in their home countries is that the New Zealand tourism operators they had met, particularly in Ma¯ ori tourism, were offering a quality and integrity of experience the industry should aspire to back home.
Some of our visiting entrepreneurs focus on preserving culture and traditions and elevating indigenous communities through tourism, so it was an eye-opener for them to see Ma¯ ori culture at the heart of many of our tourism experiences. They also heard that tourism ventures are increasingly Ma¯ ori-owned and operated, and that tikanga Ma¯ ori is woven through every aspect of the experience.
The group toured O¯ ra¯ kei (Bastion Point) with a kauma¯ tua who was there in the 1970s for the occupation and is a kaitiaki of the land. Ta¯ maki Hikoi keeps the history of Nga¯ ti Wha¯ tua O¯ ra¯ kei alive while generating a steady income by hosting walking tours of a piece of land hugely important to the New Zealand story. The group also met with Nga¯ i Tahu Tourism, which is expanding the opportunities tourists have to experience tikanga Ma¯ ori; for example, by reciting karakia before a Shotover Jet tour.
For the Southeast Asian entrepreneurs, which included people from ethnic minority groups, it was inspiring, and it reinforced our recent research into Te Ao Ma¯ ori Perceptions of Asia – namely that Ma¯ ori have an edge when it comes to engaging with Asia.
Sustainable tourism is another area in which it appears New Zealand is showing leadership.
Now, the cynics and environmentalists among you will know sustainable tourism is a hard ask when you need your customers to fly so far. But the entrepreneurs found an industry singing from the sustainability song sheet here. There is something in at least minimising the environmental impact of tourism once visitors arrive. Care for the environment and kaitiakitanga was reflected at every meeting the group had, and it really resonated with them. Several are running ecotourism enterprises that preserve and restore natural heritage and biodiversity. To see New Zealand incorporating sustainability into everyday tourist experiences gave them something to aspire to.
We learned things too. Asked what New Zealand could do to improve its tourism industry, our visitors from Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, Cambodia and Malaysia had some advice. One specific area it was suggested we might be underplaying our hand in is in halal travel. Almost all of our meat processing plants are halal-certified, and yet a Muslim from Indonesia in Taranaki appears only to have a choice between three Turkish kebab restaurants, a vegan fast food chain restaurant and the supermarket.
People from Asia make up about a quarter of our visitors each year but were down 5.1 per cent in September 2019 compared with the same month in 2018, although we are seeing increasing numbers from Indonesia, Taiwan and Singapore.
A lot of tourism operators are Asia-savvy already, providing language support and food options that make New Zealand more welcoming to Asian tourists.
But some still struggle with things like providing prayer rooms in hotels or signage in Chinese.
So, while I felt proud of what we were able to show our tourism visitors, I also think they challenged us to think about how we can improve our offer to Asian tourists while still maintaining that cultural integrity and care for environment.
Simon Draper is the executive director of the Asia New Zealand Foundation Te Whı¯tau Tu¯ hono