Tourism charter spreads wings

Rotorua's new Sustainable Business Charter is off to an impressive start, with two Business of the Year winners, the local council, chamber of commerce and polytechnic among its foundation members.

Tourism businesses have been involved in assessment, networking and idea-sharing through the Rotorua Sustainable Tourism Charter for 10 years and now the concept has been widened to the rest of the business community.

Assessor Eldad Collins, of APR Consultants, is co-ordinating the new charter and said he was pleased to get the 11 foundation members involved - including Business of the Year winners Orca Engineering and McDonald's Rotorua.

"We have the vision of Rotorua as a sustainable destination and that will take more than just the tourist attractions' involvement. Businesses not involved in tourism are all part of what we do and impact on what visitors see."

Collins was approached by Rotorua District Council to extend the work of the Tourism Charter. "We do not want to come along with a strong 'you must do this' message. It is aimed at businesses that are already on the track towards sustainablity or want to be." Membership offers independent sustainability assessments, with recommendations, opportunities for businesses to share best practice and from firms in other sectors and a marketing point of difference. He hopes the marketing benefits will increase as the charter develops and membership increases.

"It would be great if the community could support these businesses' commitment to sustainability and reward them. We also want to encourage members to support each other."

Collins said firms were increasingly thinking about sustainability in their supply chains and could look to membership of the charter to find companies that shared their own policies. Rotorua District Council sustainability manager Kerry Starling said the council approached the Sustainable Tourism Charter team after making sustainability changes within its own organisation. "We were well into getting our own house in order and then started looking at how we could encourage more sustainable behaviour in the general Rotorua community."

Businesses seemed a good place to start and the council worked with the Sustainable Business Network for a while, but Starling said that did not really take off in Rotorua, as it had elsewhere. He looked at the Rotorua Sustainable Tourism Charter and decided to adapt that model.

The council has provided limited funding for three years to get the new charter working and he said the goal was for it to become self-sustaining.

"We didn't want it to be us telling people what to do. It's about helping people to help themselves through people who have a passion for doing the right thing." As a foundation member of the charter, Rotorua District Council also hopes to lead by example and is in the process of undergoing assessments for its bodies such as Castlecorp.