With New Zealand’s borders starting to reopen, Kiwi businesses are having to be innovative to attract the lucrative tourist dollar.
The number of those travelling for pleasure is still very low. There are just 25% of the flights coming into the country from Australia these school holidays compared with April 2019.
Tourism Industry Aotearoa’s Rebecca Ingram says the greatest challenge is getting a potential visitor to “choose New Zealand”.
But once someone does decide to head to Aotearoa, each region is vying for that tourist dollar, prompting two Kaikōura businesses to launch a new attraction.
South Pacific Helicopters and award-willing Mt Fyffe gin distiller Justine Schroder, have spent many a day together on the sidelines of their boy’s rugby games.
It was during one of the games that the pair started talking about how they could join forces to help bolster tourism in their town.
It’s resulted in the country’s first heli-gin tour, guided by the distiller herself.
“What we wanted to do was bring something to the table that was so unique and so interesting and never been done before that it will encapsulate the international market," Schroder said.
The experience includes a helicopter flight and a picnic on top of Kaikōura’s picturesque Mt Fyffe, with the boutique gin distillery at the base of the mountain.
“When everyone is vying for tourist dollars we want to offer something really unique and we don’t want to go back to the status quo of what we were doing pre-Covid," Daniel Stevenson from South Pacific Helicopters said.
"Visitors increasingly want personal experiences where they can meet local owners and operators and learn about why we do what we do."
By creating a new reason to visit the region, the pair hope they can help bolster the local economy as their clients will hopefully eat, stay and experience more of the tourist town.
The borders opened to Australians this week and fully vaccinated travellers from visa-waiver countries will be welcomed in May.
Pre-pandemic tourism made up 40% of Kaikōura’s GDP.
Destination Kaikōura’s Lynette Burman says it’s been “a long two years, even though we’ve diversified somewhat, the international market is still key to our businesses here”.
The challenge is how to stand out and attract the few tourists available, to visit the region.
Destination Kaikōura is encouraging local businesses to work together.
Stevenson says “we are competing against other regions within the area so we need to make our products stand out”.
The heli-gin experience has already had its first customer and has booking enquiries for the summer ahead.
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