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Heather and Roger MacKenzie, of Warkworth Horesriding, with ATEED Maori tourism development officer Koro Carman.
A busy year of promoting the Matakana Coast regionally and nationally was summarised at an end-of-year function at Ascension Wine Estate last month.Guest speakers were Rodney MP Mark Mitchell and Auckland Tourism, Events & Economic Development (ATEED) manager Tourism Jason Hill.
Matakana Coast Tourism (MCT) chair Warren Kitchin said MCT was fulfilling an advocacy role for business groups on key regional planning and operational issues.
Agreement had been reached with nine business associations to provide regional tourism promotion and coordination, and the MCT website had been upgraded.
One of the highlights of the year was the success in securing a three-year $215,000 grant funding programme, in partnership with ATEED, to operate the Warkworth i-SITE, appoint a fulltime regional tourism coordinator and part-time visitor consultants.
Mr Hill reinforced the fact that domestic tourism was worth $5 billion a year in Auckland and while tourism from Australia, China and the US was important, it was still just the icing on the cake.
