Northland Inc's Tania Burt: Our tourism sector - an industry I call home

The O'Neale family from Wellington - Connor (left), Jeni and Chris - cross the Kawiti Truss Bridge in Ngapipito Valley during a cycle tour of the Mid North in 2020. Photo / NZME

COMMENT

OPINION

Sometimes you choose to work in the tourism industry and sometimes tourism chooses you. I was the latter. It was not a path I had intentionally set out on but as I made my way through uni summer jobs and eventually full-time positions peppered with travel to escape NZ winters and experience more of the world, something began to stick.

This industry draws you in, it becomes part of you. Not because of any particular role you have played within it, but the way it operates.

Imagine working in an industry where people work with their talents, the natural landscape, with and for those around them.

Imagine an industry where the end goal of your job is to make sure a visitor has an amazing, meaningful and memorable experience of the place you call home.

Imagine a job that if done right, could also protect and add vital energy to that same place.

Now that is a job I would choose. Some may not realise it, but many of you reading this have chosen this industry as well. Yes, 'tourism' is the accommodation, activity and attraction that are traditionally thought of.

It is also the retail store, restaurant, coffee shop, gas station, the corner dairy, the local artist, producer and storyteller and so, so much more.

We are all part of a fabric that provides our communities and our visitors with goods and services along with a welcoming and vibrant energy to our local places.

For all these reasons and after 20 years working in the private sector in hospitality and tourism, I have now accepted that this industry is where I want to be and so moved into working in the public sector and contributing not just to one company's success, but to the success and survival of an entire region's industry.

That is the business of our regional tourism organisation within Northland Inc.

Tania Burt. No one needs to be reminded of how our industry has taken a battering over the past 18 months and counting.

No one needs to be reminded of how our industry has taken a battering over the past 18 months and counting. The people in our industry who are usually beacons for optimism and innovation are now known for their courage and stoicism, seeing this pandemic ride through without being able to see around the corner.

We all work hard to advocate for the needs of industry and help decision-makers to understand that Tai Tokerau Northland is 'different.'

We did not choose our geographical location, positioning us as the only region north of Auckland and therefore also referred to as the insular peninsular when our mates in Auckland weather the pandemic storm through various forms of lockdown.

Our industry is built on domestic visitation and more than 70 per cent of that domestic visitor spend comes from visitors who live south of our beautiful region.

In a time where connectivity, cash flow and customers are the only things we need to survive, we find ourselves without.

Wage subsidies, resurgence support payments, advisory services and direct flights to and from our capital city continue to be gratefully received and still, we ask, what more can be done?

Remembering my earlier points, that Tai Tokerau Northland is different, and we are an industry that works with and for each other. There is no island in tourism.

So, what can we do besides advocate for the needs of our region and present our unique flavour of Northland style to persuade domestic visitors to choose a holiday in the North?

We can all play our part to keep this interdependent industry and its workforce intact by getting vaccinated to unlock our region (yes, this is our new reality), shopping local, buying that coffee (in your reusable cup), going to that beach clean (to keep our places beautiful), inviting friends and family to stay and travel to experience our own region (there is so much more to see and do than we realise!) and if they can't come just yet, gift vouchers also work a treat to tick one more thing off the list this festive season.

The industry needs us all now, so I urge you to take whatever action you can to support the people that I have come to know who would give you the shirt off their back if you needed it. Now that is the kind of industry I call home.

• Tania Burt is general manager destination at Northland Inc, the region's tourism organisation and economic development agency.