Home to her dream job

AMBASSADOR: Alyssa Bennett loves helping travellers enjoy her city and country.PHOTO/STEPHEN PARKER 040314SP3

She's packed a lot into her 26 years and now she's returned to Rotorua determined to re-energise the city's backpacker scene.

Alyssa - also known as Kapua - Bennett is the team leader at Rotorua's new Peterpans Adventure Travel agency on the corner of Hinemoa and Fenton Sts.

Peterpans is an Australian-based company catering to backpackers throughout the South Pacific. It has 19 stores in Australia and the Rotorua store is its third in New Zealand, after Queenstown and Auckland.

Mrs Bennett said the story of how she came to head up Peterpans Rotorua came down to "really good timing".

In 2008, after having her first daughter, she and her partner left Rotorua for Melbourne. Shortly afterwards, they had a second daughter.

She remembers being determined not to become a stereotype of a young mum "whose life was over".

She loved swimming so worked as a swim coach. She was good at maths and problem solving so worked in accounting for a while. However travel was at the top of her bucket list.

For the past five years she has worked in the travel industry in Melbourne.

"I worked my butt off to get famils [familiarisation tours] and entered every competition to get free trips."

It worked and she travelled throughout Asia and the South Pacific, sometimes taking her kids with her - "where there's a will there's a way".

In December last year she and her partner moved back to Rotorua to be closer to her sick dad and to get married at St Faith's.

Then fate intervened.

"I heard through the grapevine there was a travel agency opening up in Rotorua called Peterpans so I gave Larissa Fuller [Peterpans' general manager] a call," she said. "We hit it off from the get-go. What she was doing here was exactly what I wanted to do."

Ms Fuller was in town, they met the next morning and the job was Mrs Bennett's.

Since opening their door, Mrs Bennett and her international staff have been rushed off their feet.

She said she was keen to help energise the backpacker scene for the benefit of the city.

"What I am trying to do is support small local businesses, get them on board, get that economy going," she said.

Ms Fuller said the support from local operators had been overwhelming.

"We have gained so much more understanding into Rotorua and its suppliers which already has filtered right through our Australian and New Zealand network.

"This understanding can only mean bigger and better things for the future of Rotorua as a tourist must-see destination amongst backpackers."

Tonight Mrs Bennett hosts Peterpans' official launch - a joint effort with Rotorua Canopy Tours and Rotorua Duck Tours, who recently moved in next door.

It's another chance for Mrs Bennett to celebrate being home.

"We thought it [returning to Rotorua] would be like going back 10 steps but I refused to let that happen."