Well done Whale Watch
"Kaikoura tourism operator Whale Watch has been handed the Supreme Award at this year's Responsible Tourism Awards in London.
It was declared the overall winner for developing a tourism initiative from the ground up. The awards honour operators across the world that seek to ensure that local communities and environments benefit from tourism as much as possible."This really is a good operation and initiative - sure it's not perfect but it is an ecofriendly, ecocultural tourism icon now and we should be proud of it and it's achievements.
I'd like to see us replicate this around Te Wai Pounamu - let's use this award to grow our businesses in an ecocultural-conservation way. We have the model, we have the island, we have the people - we just need the plan and the will to do it.
4 comments:
Marty, Good stuff, I'm coming south... call me 0272TUATARA... Cheers, Tony Edwards.
The key to the Whalewatch story was the preparedness of a few families to risk their own homes and futures as they sought a hand up from government and the iwi.
The iwi contribution of securing the preferential (monopoly) rights to watch the whales was certainly key to survival and subsequent success.
One of the challenges for replication is that only a few tourism businesses can sustain more than a small work-force.
The other thing to ask is who benefits? In a corporate model such as this the name of Kati Kuri is used - but how many Kuri benefit?
Not taking away from the achievements of Whalewatch - but I hear we could do better as Ngai Tahu in letting the folks up there be part of the success.
OMG are people finally waking up to the PR BS that is Whalewatch. Of course they are responsible in their community, their Pakeha Kaikoura community. Who benefits? That's easy, just look for the big black imtimidating trucks.
To Anon November 26, 5.11pm this comment is quite sad you need to know the story around those purchases as Whale Watch did not pay for them as most of the profits are pumped back into the company. Some of the questions that the public do not know is how much putea has the Whale Watch group put into the community both Maori and Pakeha......well lets just say it exceeds well over a million dollars! That is also not mentioning the huge amounts of personal time and sacrifice that Uncle Bill and Aunty Becky put into the company, the marae and the community..attacking this company is a takehe over those two people that done so much and it is human nature for their decendents to defend their mana, as no one can dispute Uncle Bills and Aunty Becks committment to the hapu or Iwi. Whale Watch is a 100% Maori owned company so instead of bagging it why not celebrate a successful business that our people have created
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