Putting spark back into city

Christina Humphries is loving being part of what she calls the Rotorua tourism corner, which is seeing plenty of foot traffic. Photo/Ben Fraser

A growing number of tourist attractions are setting up shop in the Rotorua CBD, filling empty shops and aiming to bring a positive energy to the city.

Over the past few months, a new "tourism corner" has developed around the intersection of Fenton and Hinemoa Sts.

In what were previously vacant Fenton St stores, Peterpans Adventure Travel agency opened a couple of months ago, followed by Rotorua Canopy Tours and Rotorua Duck Tours who have joined forces a couple of stores down. Around the corner on Hinemoa St, Multi-Day Adventures and Mountain Bike Rotorua have also successfully expanded from the forest to the city.

Tonight, it's the turn of HELiPRO Rotorua to officially launch its two-week old Fenton St base.

Store manager Christina Humphries said the company's lease at Te Puia ended about a month ago so it moved its flying base to Rotorua Airport.

However, they were worried about the loss of foot traffic, the hordes of Te Puia visitors captivated by the "big red helicopter".

"We thought what can we do. We decided on an office in town," Miss Humphries said. "This location was perfect."

She said the close proximity to the i-SITE information centre, a number of big hotels and backpackers meant there were plenty of visitors and locals popping into the store, especially since it put up its eye-catching White Island and Tarawera posters.

She said it was great having a cluster of tourism operators in such close proximity.

"I am calling it the new Rotorua tourism corner," she said.

Already this week, they have had a number of walk-ins who have booked flights.

Rotorua Duck Tours owner Trevor Weir said his new city base opened last month.

In business for 10 years, he'd never previously had a physical office. Instead the ducks doubled as offices.

"We'd seen the shop and thought it would be a great location to operate tours out of," he said.

Splitting the space with Rotorua Canopy Tours meant they could share costs - a shared staff member took bookings, sold merchandise and provided information for both, he said.

"It was also strategic, we have customers wanting to do both ... they are family-oriented products."

He said it was amazing how much foot traffic Fenton St got. Even at 10 or 11 at night, people would stop and watch the all night TV showing their activities in the window.

Mr Weir said he hoped the move would also raise awareness of their activities among locals - Duck Tours has a discounted locals' card available until May 10.

Multi-Day Adventures and Mountain Bike Rotorua owner Tak Mutu moved his administrative base to the back of a Hinemoa St store in July last year after his companies grew out of their Waipa car park shop. In November, he opened the front up as a retail space, taking tour bookings, renting bikes and selling coffee.

Before that, the shop had been vacant for three years. "Town was pretty sad. It's really nice to see it starting to change," Mr Mutu said. "We're really passionate about building this town."

He said the retail operation didn't need to make money as the back office paid for it. But it has turned a profit, a bonus which has Mr Mutu "totally stoked".

He's loving seeing other tourism operators join them in the CBD and said in general there were good relationships between operators.