Stalling coaches hit museum

The past few months have served up the best of times and the worst of times for Kauri Museum CEO Betty Nelley.

The best of times was just last week when the Kauri Museum and four other Northland tourism attractions won five out of nine major category awards in the annual Grand Pacific Tours Awards, held in Melbourne; the worst of times has been enduring a steep decline in the coach trade over the past few months as thousands of Aussies opt to cross the Tasman in cruise ships rather than fly over and tour the country by coach.

Cruising means these visitors hug the coast in their floating hotels - sometimes paying as little as $100 a day - rather than seeing the regions by coach.

Inland attractions had been having a miserable time, says Ms Nelley. The hospitality and accommodation sectors had also been squeezed with people on the cruise ships not only sleeping on board but even returning to the vessel for lunch.

The Kauri Museum, located in central Northland to the south-west of Whangarei, had been hit hard.

"Coaches are a very big thing for us and this year coach numbers have been way, way down," she said.

"It's been horrible. We have averaged 65,000 visitors a year for the past 10 years and now we find ourselves with 34 per cent fewer coaches calling in the past financial year. It's a shock when something like this happens to such a well-established operation.

"Tourism funds us - not ratepayer or taxpayer money.

"We've had to really tighten our belts. We are very much a community museum supported by many volunteers and we've worked together to keep going. Some of the paid staff have chosen to help out by cutting their working week down to four days. No one has had to be put off."

She said cruise ships were continuing to be built and the trade was becoming extremely competitive, leading to the rock-bottom prices.

The Melbourne-based Grand Pacific Tours was meeting the challenge by aggressively marketing its coach tours in the UK and North America while Charles Parker, general manager of Fullers Great Sights Bay of Islands, says his company is turning more to the domestic market to compensate for the loss of trade.

Mrs Nelley said the Kauri Museum being voted "favourite attraction 2011-2012 for the Ultimate Tour series for New Zealand" had been "a lifetime highlight" for her because the Ultimate Tour was for high-end travellers, who demanded the best.

The tour was delivered in luxury 20-seat coaches, travelling from the Bay of Islands to Dunedin taking in the best New Zealand had to offer. It was booked out year after year.

Travelling with Grand Pacific Tours personnel on a six-cities-in-six-days (Brisbane to Melbourne) roadshow selling New Zealand tours earlier this month had also been a big morale-booster, she said.

"There were some very positive bookings and people seemed to be saying they were looking to come back to coach touring because they were finding they are not seeing the country and meeting New Zealanders when they travelled on the cruise ships.

"Someone who had been on a cruise to New Zealand said 'we might just as well have gone down to the local RSL [Australian RSA] club.

"I really feel the tide may be turning."