Editorial: Rip offs kick us where it hurts

Every day Rotorua has a sea of people busying themselves with making our name stand out among the best.

If the city had its own mantelpiece, it would be full - with trophies for having the best tourism facilities, to being named the most beautiful city (seven times no less).

Then along comes something that could potentially undo all that good work.

As a local, I felt personally gutted when I heard a Rotorua company had been involved in selling a range of high-priced souvenir items to tourists which were in fact cheap offshore rip-offs.

Top Sky Holdings Ltd and Kiwi Wool Ltd have been convicted and fined in the Auckland District Court after tourists from China, Korea and Taiwan visited the companies' stores in Rotorua and Auckland through organised tours and paid up to $8000 for alpaca rugs and up to $1000 for duvets and merino products, which claimed to be "proudly made in New Zealand" and 100 per cent alpaca or merino.

The rugs had instead been imported from Peru, the alpaca wool content was only 20 per cent and the other items were not merino, said the Commerce Commission.

Top Sky Holdings, based in Maisey Pl in Rotorua, was fined $140,000 and managing consultant Haidong Chen fined $24,500.

Kiwi Wool was fined $84,000 and managing director Jinming Chen fined $10,500.

The company directors admitted they knew the representations made about the duvets were not true and that manufacturing the duvets cost about $70 each.

Destination Rotorua Marketing general manager Oscar Nathan quite rightly said Rotorua's catchphrase had always been Manaakitanga - which refers to our spiritual warmth and hospitality - and these actions were in direct contrast to that.

The practices of these businesses are plain shonky and those responsible should be hanging their heads in shame.