High praise as Skyline lifts inaugural visitor experience award

Customer satisfaction with Queenstown's Skyline attraction grows every year. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Skyline Queenstown has won a top tourist industry accolade, taking out the inaugural ServiceIQ Visitor Experience Award.

The attraction is best known for its gondola and restaurant on Bob's Peak, overlooking Lake Wakatipu and the southern town. It also offers Maori cultural performances, a luge track and mountain bike trails.

Judges said the focus on "hosting its guests like friends" had paid off, with constant impressive annual growth in customer satisfaction.

The award was one of three presented after the Tourism Industry Association summit in Wellington.

A Queenstown tourism leader, described as an unsung hero, has been recognised for his outstanding contribution to the tourism industry.

Tony McQuilkin, commercial director for Real Journeys, has won the Crowe Horwath International Sir Jack Newman Award for 2014.

McQuilkin began his tourism career in 1980 as Queenstown area manager for Fiordland Travel, which became Real Journeys.

He has been a strong advocate for the restoration and preservation of the 102-year-old TSS Earnslaw, ensuring its future with an unusual heritage protection order that saw the steamship become the first vessel to be protected under a district plan.

Rotorua entrepreneur Jamie Fitzgerald has won the 2014 PATA New Zealand Trust Young Tourism Leader Award. He spotted an opportunity and went on to create a thriving eco-tourism business, despite the naysayers. Fitzgerald is managing director of Rotorua Canopy Tours, New Zealand's only native forest zipline canopy tour.

"I spotted the zipline trend emerging overseas in 2008 and realised it was perfect for New Zealand as it could showcase our native forest and the magic of our natural environment," he said.

He embarked on a four-year journey, taking the concept to build one of the world's best zipline canopy tours from an idea to a successful business, opening in August 2012.

"There was no business model to follow, no experts available in New Zealand and everybody telling me that there was no market for this type of product to make a return."

Two years on and the business employs 20 staff and has hosted 30,000 visitors, 55 per cent from overseas.