Surveys underpin tourism plan

Visitors to the Mahurangi region, between Puhoi and Pakiri including Kawau Island are being surveyed for their impressions of the area.

The results will help shape a regional tourism plan aimed at enhancing both the community and visitor experience, developing product, and growing returns and market reach. The development of a collaborative tourism structure is also a goal.

The project is led by the NZ Tourism Research Unit (NZTRI), based at AUT, under the auspices of a steering committee made up of local tourism and business stakeholders, and Rodney District Council.

At a presentation to about 160 people at Ascension Wine Estate on August 9, NZTRI director Simon Milne described the project as “cutting edge work” which other regions would be interested in modelling.

The project will include three online surveys running simultaneously, collecting data from visitors, the community and businesses.

Professor Milne said web-based surveys had many advantages.

“They are cost-effective, accessible, can easily be configured to give sub-regional and event specific information, and can provide a barometer of trends rather than a simple snapshot,” he said.

“We hope to capture visitor comments as soon after their visit as possible. Four to five hundred responses will be good, but more will be better.”

Although the project was initially called the Matakana Visitor Strategy Research, this had been replaced with Puhoi to Pakiri.

“We don’t want to pre-judge what the region name should be. We’re hoping that this will fall out of the survey.”

While the visitor survey will run until next March, the community survey will conclude on September 17 and the business survey on September 24.

Information about the project, as well as the surveys, can be found at www.regionalsurveys.co.nz

Pictured: Professor Simon Milne talks to Chris Ward following the meeting at Ascension.