 Ngamia kia koutou. Welcome to this webinar on regenerative tourism today. I'm Alina Siegfried and I'm the author and host of the Our Regenerative Future content series that's been produced in partnership with Pure Advantage and Edmund Hillary Fellowship. Over the past few months we've been bringing you the stories and ideas of those who are working at the forefront of developing regenerative models for New Zealand's economy in the future. We started out with a focus on rural regenerative agriculture, and we've now expanded this conversation into other areas including forestry, urban community agriculture and tourism, which is the focus of today's session. Through these conversations we hope to spark some cross-sector dialogue, recognising that this process of regeneration isn't just up to the farmers that need to get on board, and we'd love to get people thinking about systems-level strategies for regenerative and restorative economy for Aotearoa going forward. Today's panel features three fantastic leading thinkers in the area of sustainable and regenerative tourism. We have Dr Suzanne Beckin, who is a professor of sustainable tourism and has served as a director of the Griffith Institute for Tourism at Griffith University in Queensland, Australia. She also serves as a principal science investment advisor for tourism in New Zealand's Department of Conservation and is on Air New Zealand's sustainability advisory panel. She's published over 100 articles on sustainable tourism, climate change and tourism resource use, and is an elected fellow of the International Academy of the Study of Tourism. Larissa Cooney of Te Ate Haonui Apaparangi. Whanganui Descent is the chair of Tourism Bay of Plenty, which has adopted a regenerative tourism strategy. She has previously held roles with Deloitte in New Zealand and London, as a director of the Charitable Investment Trust for Ngai Tai Kitamaki, and a chartered member of the Institute of Directors. Her work in the regenerative space is inspired by the whakatauki from her iwi, koau te awa, ko te awa koau. I am the river and the river is me. And finally Trent Yeo is executive director of ZipTrek Eco Tours in Queenstown, which he set up 10 years ago as an eco-tourism business that utilizes the power of adventure to help create meaningful memories of place. He's a current board member of Tourism Ministry Aotearoa and is a retired TEDx organizer. So welcome to the three of you today. It's fantastic to have you here on the panel. I see we've got almost 80% voted on our poll. Looks like the majority of people of the largest sector is people who are aligned with tourism, which is fantastic given that that's today's discussion. But we've got a good balance of other people on the call from business, primary sector, and academia as well. And it looks like most people are calling in from urban New Zealand today with about 23% in rural and almost 20% outside New Zealand. So particular welcome. No mai haere mai to you all. Thank you for joining us today. Just to let you know, you can submit questions to the panel through the Q&A box, which you can find down on the bottom bar on Zoom. And from there, we'll be asking our panellist a mix of prepared questions and questions that you put through that box. We are recording this session today and we're also streaming live on Facebook on the Edmund Hillary Fellowship page if you wanted to share with your friends today or you could share the recording later on, which you'll be able to find on the Pure Advantage website and also on the Edmund Hillary Fellowship YouTube channel. At this stage, I would love to ask our wonderful panellists to just briefly introduce themselves and perhaps weave into your answers what does regenerative tourism mean to you? Let's start with you, Larissa. I think you're on mute there. I'll just take you off. Thank you. Kia ora koutou. Ko Aotea toki waka, ko Rupai toki moinga, ko Whanganui toku awa, ko Ateau Nui o Paparangi toku iwi, ko Larissa Cooney ahau. Thank you. It is a privilege to be here. I might just... I've got a couple of pre-prepared thoughts here, but where I want to touch on with regenerative tourism is firstly on a key concept that I believe frames the whole regenerative approach. And I think for us to truly understand what it means for regenerative tourism, we need to understand the concept of the ecosystem. And that's moving away from a system that we used to know more of an ecosystem where we're independent and separate and largely do not impact each other when we think about our environment. So we're separate from our environment. We're separate from each other. And the only way to impact that is with physical force. So the ecosystem moves us more to a model where we see everything is interconnected and that everything in that ecosystem, our environment and the people and everything that's on planet Earth as a living being. Effectively everything that exists and the vibration that flows through it and can be easily transferred to other assisting parts of that. So I think it's really important that we do understand that key concept because it sort of frames the whole regenerative approach that to get the concept that our environment is a living being. We are living beings and we not only impact each other through physical force but through our energy, frequency and body. So just a couple of points I just want to touch on there which further informs that because it is quite a radical reframe or a different way of seeing our world. And some people have never observed it from that way and you've got others who have grown up and that's a way of knowing. But there's just two things I want to touch on here and that's ancient wisdom and quantum science which I think further help us inform this concept of the ecosystem. So when you look at ancient wisdom specifically here in New Zealand our Māori culture acknowledges our natural environment as a living being. So you'll see that we name our Earth Papatuanuku, Mother Papatuanuku, the Sky Rangi Nui and Tāne Mahuta, our forest and Tangaroa, our oceans. So there's a very clear connection in ancient wisdom that our natural environment is a living being. And then the second side of that is the I just want to touch on the whakitoki that you talked about, Lina, Ko'o te Awa ko te Awa ko'o which means it's a Māori proverb it has a specific archetype which has a whole body of knowledge underneath it that means I am the river the river is me. And when you come from that perspective the well-being of our environment is a direct reflection of the well-being of the people and vice versa. If the people are doing well our environment will do well if our environment is doing well then our people will do well. So there's that knowledge that sits there in ancient wisdom that all existing things and that generation that flows through it and can be easily transferred to other existing things. And then the second step just to touch on there is that quantum field science, the science behind it. There's a whole wealth of new science there that is further informing ancient wisdom and this concept of the ecosystem and living beings and the interdependence of it just to touch on a couple and I think this helps people really understand that Masiro Emoto he was a Japanese researcher who looked at, researched the intelligence of water and proved that water is sensitive and it responds to what we say and the energy transferred with that. So when you send good energy to water and saying positive words to it that form the most beautiful crystals his research also looked at prayers and intentions and sending out energy and how that could change the quality of the water and improve it. There's a large number of studies he did that where people went out and they put good intentions into polluted lakes and then they tested afterwards and the quality of it had improved. And so there's research there. You've got the quantum physics which talks about concept of entanglement and the Zerba effect which shows that we're only 1% physical and the rest of us is our energy body so it can influence each other in that ecosystem. And our limited attention lady there's a whole heap of research there which shows that every thought has a tangible energy with the power to transform and that the universe is not a store house of static separate objects but a single organism of interconnected energy fields in a continuous state of becoming. So that's just a couple of examples that further inform that ecosystem approach but what's important about bringing it back to tourism bringing it back to tourism is when we can have that true awareness that everything is interconnected it's all alive our environment with the people then things get really exciting in terms of how we view life and what is possible. And I think tourism can be a real advocate and it can be a vehicle for raising this level of consciousness and we've seen a lot of research that's coming out now where the new tourist is asking for storytelling, cultural experiences a transformation experience connection with nature so if you can bring that wisdom through that space then tourism takes on a whole new life and then that also there's a much richer experience in exchange between the host and the visitor in our environment. So I'll leave it there because it will come from that but I just think it's a really cool part of having a regenerative approach is to understand the ecosystem approach and what drives it. Absolutely, thank you for that detailed and wonderful connecting introduction Larissa, I'm looking forward to diving into a few of those concepts a bit more deeply. Let's just introduce the rest of the panel so Suzanne, if you'd like to briefly introduce yourself. Yeah, thank you and thank you for having this event focusing on tourism I think that's a great extension and so complementary to the discussions you've had on regenerative agriculture tourism is heavily reliant on healthy environments but also healthy for community and people and so I think Larissa said the scene I'm an ecologist I did my university degree in ecology so I'm very interested in ecosystem health but I learned a lot about tourism and the interaction between people in the land and maybe just to sort of advance further what Larissa was saying and contrasting a bit of sustainable tourism we've got a very long tradition of sustainable tourism in fact in some parts world leading in New Zealand and people ask what's the difference between sustainable tourism and regenerative tourism is it the same thing it's obviously very related and if we were all achieving well on the sustainable tourism front we would be a long way but the philosophy is a bit different in that regenerative tourism is more just avoiding harm so I think in practice sustainable tourism has become a little bit an approach where quite isolated a business might focus on some technology solutions to address maybe carbon emissions or interviews recycling or this maybe measures in terms of staff but it doesn't consider itself as being an integral part of the destination the system it doesn't usually go beyond the borders of a particular company and I think regenerative tourism thinks a lot more about actually giving back to the place where tourism operates so not just the company but the local people whether it's regenerating ecosystems contributing to thriving culture making sure community networks are built rather than eroded for tourism and I think it became really clear in the last five years in New Zealand but also globally in some ways it's not enough because any efficiency has been outright by growth so we need to move towards much more holistic thinking and I think regenerative tourism offers that opportunity especially in New Zealand Fantastic, thank you for that distinction Susan Over to you Trent Kia ora koutou I consider myself a practitioner here in Queenstown we zip trek ego tours as a flying fox zipline tourism business the reason I'm in tourism is because it's a people game and I believe that people are the gaps that we have towards a better design future I don't believe it's a technological or practical challenge and this pandemic we've seen ourselves into shows that humanity can make massive changes in a short amount of time if it needs to what my background is actually architecture and we studied sustainability through architecture through architecture design system and work with many people who are experts in their systems in their deeper part of the system and from that I realised and recognised that I didn't necessarily need to do anything or build anything to affect people once again on people focused and all I needed to do was get people into the outdoors and get them to recognise live and breathe the inspiration that comes from our beautiful places and to build relationships with humans whilst doing so was vitally important so that's why I'm in the tourism game in terms of sustainability and the concept of sustainability which is often used and now we're using the term regenerative tourism agriculture and other things but it's just kind of like let's not think about doing less bad and think about doing more good and it's really kind of simple you need to do best, less bad to do more good but it's if you aim for the moon you'll get to the top of the tree and that's kind of where I am right now Thanks Trent I love that framing of not just doing less bad but actually doing good I'd love to ask you now actually what trends have you seen in New Zealand so far what are you seeing on the ground as a tourism operator? I would say trends are hard to gather in short data points I guess my question is what trends were you seeing before COVID Oh yeah so we as a business we're finding actually a slight decline in our business anyway some people and once again the world is not spread evenly but then obviously significantly we went to a zero business and what we've found in terms of trends coming out is that domestic tourism is strong and can be strong but it's very very very lumpy and that's not sustainable I would say and so concentrating and thinking about tourism in a very different way not only new markets but the changing habits of the old markets is really really important and considering adding something of significant value to people so in terms of trends it was an interesting time we came off a very high time of the last 10 years and actually that's the last time we opened that business in 2009 and we've only seen up and so it's a very interesting time and we'll sort out the the good operators versus the others probably right got it that is behind trend right now that's not a virtual background he's actually in front of a window in those trees which I think is pretty neat I am not in a field of sunflowers just to be completely transparent with y'all Doctor Suzanne I'm wondering if you have any further comments what's the level of maturity of this field around the world this concept of regenerative tourism is it something that's reasonably new I think it is new actually this idea of giving back so not just cleaning up your own act but really seeing yourself as the destination and having some responsibility beyond your business and we've always said you can't run a sustainable hotel if you are in an unsustainable destination because you need your partners you need the infrastructure you need to work together so I think it's quite new I was going to comment on the question on trends as well because I do actually think we really talked about regenerative tourism New Zealand has been leading on quite a few fronts and I know that because last year I had the privilege to judge the tourism New Zealand 100% pure awards so I had to read for 70 applications of operators around the country and I was actually really impressed it was amazing most of these operators were involved in some form of predator control towards the predator free 50 they did carbon sequestration they sought to work with local EVI and incorporate tikanga mai value so I was actually quite impressed how much was going on and even at the government level with the international visitor EVI that was introduced $35 per visitor which essentially is directed towards conservation products projects so that's in some ways that is the start of regenerative tourism that the visitors give back so I think we've got all the seats in the ground so to speak we need to scale it up obviously understand a bit better what it truly means and in that sense I can see New Zealand being a world leader in this space absolutely I think that that's key is to scale it's great to see organisations like Bay of Plenty Tourism taking on a regenerative strategy Larissa can you tell us a little bit about how that came about sure thanks so Tourism Bay of Plenty engaged an organisation called Destination Think to help us co-design a plan for our regenerative tourism approach in the coastal Bay of Plenty with our long-term outcome to show that tourism can be a regenerative force that enables all of life to thrive a place that not only sustains life but fosters new life currently regenerating environment so our perspective on regenerative tourism is it's all about leaving our place and our people better than we found them so coming back to what Susanna and Trent talked about it's that the difference between sustainable and regeneration going that extra step so we did we've adopted a regenerative strategy we've gone through a number of steps with that we started purposely started our journey by trying to understand what was our DNA if the coastal Bay of Plenty and we use the word DNA because we wanted to illustrate the fact that our place is a living system bringing it back to that concept of the ecosystem so that was purposeful and then we continue to use all of the common principles that are part of the regenerative ecosystem of Tahi Tanga Manaki Tanga Kaiti Tanga we wanted to embed all of that right through so we did the strategy collaboratively we went out to the community and we asked for feedback and we built it from there and what we've found is it's really really important when you acknowledge this ecosystem and regenerative approach that you can't do it on our own it's going to take the whole community to get in on this it takes local council and you want them to buy into the approach business leaders chambers your iwi group and it's really bringing all of the key players in your community together to buy into this concept to move forward because it's about ensuring our infrastructure is right for our tourism numbers it's ensuring resident satisfaction so residents are on board in that part of this approach and it does you want to ensure our natural resources and the storytelling element and as I talked about earlier being able to bring that to life through cultural experiences and we have this as paramount as well for people really getting this concept that we are part of our environment and our environment as a part of us and you can heal together so we went on that journey we've developed a storytelling framework with resident input we've developed the next step we developed integrated destination management plan and development plan which aims to bring visitors into harmony with our larger identity that is here and then we looked at what are the niche groups for our bay what are those niche groups that allow us to stay connected with our environment and ensure that everyone flourishes and we came up with 4 key niche groups there, outdoor adventures cultural explorers surf and beach lovers in the eco-travelers and so we've done that with the support we have reached out to pioneers in this space so Ana Pollock who's from the UK pioneer of the conscious traveller has been very supportive and has helped us move forward in this space back to I think it was Suzanne's comment she sees New Zealand as being a visionary country here to really relieve a strong regenerative tourism approach and so we feel very grateful that we have the support of Ana and also destination thinking and other bodies who are helping us on this journey because it is quite a new concept yeah absolutely and you touched on your introduction around bringing some of the concepts of Matauranga Maori into some of your planning tips or advice for other regions in New Zealand that might be wanting to take more of that approach and how you are able to bring that into an organisation that functions with a lot of different stakeholders and yeah, new thoughts there Yeah, really good question actually because what we found quite early it was important to have a strong relationship with Iwi and so this what we did quite early in our experience is in order to connect with Maori cultural values we engaged a role and we purposefully invested in a role in our organisation called our Kaihoutou and that's a Maori economy role so that's someone who's come in to really help us reach out and have a true authentic relationship with Iwi it goes both ways and both can benefit and we go on the journey together and that's helped so I would recommend having the intel and the experience within the organisation to help with that and a general commitment that we're in this for a long term game you want your values to be aligned because I think with any partnership or relationship we all want to see that the values are consistent and that we're going to walk that and we're in this journey together for a long term Thank you, fantastic and just to ask quickly there's a question for you, Larissa in the chat just to reiterate the name of that water study that you mentioned before Okay, so the the Paine, I guess, or the international round research, it was so this is the true, can you see that? Perfect, the true power of water Yeah, but if you google there's a lot and he's got several books which cover the research Wonderful, thank you We're obviously facing a really interesting time in New Zealand and a very challenging time for tourism operators as we reassess what the future is going to look like and our borders being closed for a long time and so I think there's a lot to happen there that needs to around looking at the value of tourism and our mindset around how the intricacies of work in New Zealand Susanna, I wonder if you could comment on ways that perhaps we might stop looking at the total number of tourists and look at the contribution and the value that those tourists are bringing both domestic and eventually international Yeah, and I did notice a few questions as well on that and in relation to volumes and borders and so on so I think Louisa made a good case for how you approached it in the Bay of Plenty and really also thinking about what do we want from tourism and what kind of visitor types would fit our destination and I think we need to do the same thinking for New Zealand. What do we actually want and what does value mean and value of course has an economic component in terms of expenditure but it is more, it's about resilient markets and this is where for example Australia is just so important and might not be the highest vendors but they're close, they have a low carbon footprint so for example an Australian visitor who comes to New Zealand produces about half a ton of carbon dioxide for the air travel and a European visitor produces five times as much three times and so we have to think about a long term is this actually a liability is it a risk so value for tourism has multiple components and it's about what do people contribute to the larger culture environment and so on so thinking a little bit about but that's how it's not just about the numbers but it's what we get out of it and less might be more just a brief comment on domestic tourism because obviously that's all we have in the moment and to be honest looking at some other countries in the world we're really lucky we have a domestic market I just saw numbers from Thailand where tourism is 20% of GDP mainly international people are absolutely bleeding so we are lucky and I think maybe what comes out of this is that we appreciate domestic market more again that we develop high value products for the domestic traveller I'm thinking for example about food tourism local culinary trials where we can really add multiple values together every New Zealanders who does not leave the country but holidays in New Zealand also does not produce a carbon footprint because we Kiwis 3.1 million fly overseas every year so you've got a double remedy if we travel here so the question is how sustainable is that long term in terms of commercial value and trend I'm sure you've got some ideas on that what other markets can we capture that allow carbon high value maybe student international markets that already make a big chunk of international arrivals maybe we can extract more value there so I think that's the kind of shift in thinking that it's not just bums on seats but actually who comes here what do they do and how do they contribute yeah absolutely and we'll come to you in a moment Trent I just want to come back to your thoughts around how we might get people to spend more time in a one particular place rather than jumping from place to place and ticking things off their bucket list and you know just travelling very quickly but rather actually staying in one place I mean it's quite a mindset shift in terms of how we do tourism but are there any places around the world that do that well I mean it's this whole shift towards slow travel and first it starts of course with the types of people that you can get to New Zealand and what they're driven by generally meaning for deep experiences and connecting with a place or just ticking off Instagram icons so that's one thing and then on the practical level I'm sure again Trent has some ideas and then Larissa but they are of course already good examples where for example in Ormaru the Penguin colony it's quite handy it's a night it's an evening attraction which then helps quite purposefully people to stay in town the night and then you have dinner and spend money on accommodation so designing experiences in a way that keep people longer making it attractive to explore local attractions rather than just sipping essentially driving for New Zealand I think that's the key and I think to be honest this current experience will really trigger some innovation and entrepreneurship to offer exactly that slower travel for people you know cycle trails are wonderful example as well where people go slowly and really take in what the local place has to offer Yeah thank you Trent I'm wondering if you know given that you've spent 10 years in the sector what sort of opportunities do you see for integrated models of regenerative tourism that might include restorative practices perhaps in farming or forestry or food and beverage as Suzanne had mentioned and looking at the things not so much in a siloed point of view but how can you know how could tourists help plant trees on our farms or restore wetlands or anything like that So yeah I think I totally agree with a very deeper broader view of what a tourist value is and I think that there's many ways in which to interact companies employ people and create economic value but there's much more than that for us that New Zealand does really well could be sold through tourism and tourism experiences I was literally talking to a drinks manufacturer who does it amazing they have a sustainable tourism business cheer sisters and I was asking them about how they looked into tourism opportunities in which to learn about how another organisation has transformed or focused itself on creating a sustainable model or a regenerative model and I think it's not easy for everybody but you think about every piece of agricultural land in New Zealand it's spectacular by definition there's so much amazing stuff to see and experiences to get deeply into the storytelling and camaraderie which can be built through people to people connection is also extremely important and then in terms of future trade and that's with an international anda Kiwi traveller is I remember that farm I'd like to buy my eggs from there because I believe in Joe they do a really good job so there's sort of like a soft perspective of interaction then there's hard interactions like I'm totally going to I'll support Joe's egg farm not a good example and then buy the egg products and tell my family that it's a good place so there's lots of accelerator or multiplier effects which can come through experience and that's why I'm once again in the game of experience because tourism is memory making and memory making is a match between an experience and an emotion once we can have an emotional response to something gives us a best chance to help that experience and to anchor it in place and so for me it's one of the greatest opportunities to build that relationship and in this context and I think the domestic tourism is so important to talk about is we have to build repeated visitors slash advocates for our place because if you think that all of the tourism that was going overseas is staying here we're not going to survive if we can have repeat visitation from those same people and all their families, friends and associates so we have to produce a value proposition that is so high that I would like to come back again and or is changeable so therefore I'm constantly getting new information that keeps me excited but if we have designed a whole system for unique visitation this is the biggest challenge and it's something that we face every day if you've designed it for unique visitation your model may not exist in the future Right, yeah some interesting points there about creating that connection to place and having people come back and I guess with a lot of these conversations when we're talking about regenerative tourism I think probably most people's first association would be to the environment certainly a social element here too Larissa maybe you could speak a little bit to the social elements of regenerative tourism from your point of view Sure so just a couple of points there and it probably comes back to my opening comment that it's not just about leaving our land better than we found it but it's that commitment to leave our people better than we found them so each tourism encounter with the visitor and the host if they've got that intention and that deep awareness that we're all connected in this one ecosystem and if you're doing well then I'm going to do well and we're all going to flourish and be very, very happy and healthy people then the experience is quite different when people come from that really grounded intention experience and that for the visitor as well the visitor coming in knowing I want to give back and I want to leave this place better then I found I want this place to be better for me visiting and that could be a monetary exchange so being happy to pay more for that experience because they see that connection and they can see how it's giving back to that community or it could be an energetic exchange where I talked about earlier in terms of our frequency in terms of prayer and kata kia and going on that journey touching on what Trent said and it could be going back and sharing root of mouse we're found to be one of our most efficient forms of marketing here so there's that whole social element there's of course the element of I know a number of iwi groups that I work with will purposely go into tourism because it generates jobs for their people and it assures that these work and I know a number of them who are students whenever they do their tourist attraction they will stand up and they will thank the visitor because their contribution has helped them get their education and so they are therefore leaving that person better and people want that the research that has come out that people want to be contributing when they are out being a visitor they want to have a transformative experience and they want to learn they want to learn more if we take it from that perspective it's not just about our environment but it's leaving our people better than that whole ecosystem benefits and effectively coming back to that ecosystem if one's not doing well then the other's not doing well so we want all of it to flourish Yeah fantastic there's a great question here from Amanda Hunt in the Q&A box around climate change and the future of air travel and I guess it's a difficult question for New Zealand to face but what is the future of international tourism realistically at the moment a lot of people in tourism are just perhaps pressing that pause button and waiting for business as usual to return once COVID is in the clear Trent do you think we might need to be realistic and start really rethinking our tourism strategy and it might actually require a permanent downsizing of the industry for New Zealand Yeah so I think that's a really interesting point I think that I know that tourism New Zealand has completely changed the way in which they're doing everything they've created a whole domestic team they've never had the mandate to really do that and they're completely flipped everything on that they're putting resources into getting people out there I believe there's we sort of have the ultimate opportunity to re-think about how we deliver tourism in our focuses and I would love to see everyone really get on board creating a whole ecosystem around focused on a domestic traveller the thing about the domestic traveller the key we traveller is we don't actually have that much data about them so that's also being done and that's for the first time really and so once we can understand habits and interests so I think that will help us to be able to make those changes because there's significant changes in the ecosystem they're not just like minor changes for some people's business 100% of the business was based on international travel so we have to have a lot of focus on this and encouragement of each other to do this it is vitally important and I sort of have used the analogy before of if and it's a bad analogy and maybe a good one is that if New Zealand was a rugby team you would probably say to them you'd probably say to them you have a lot of talent you have talent oozing out your pores but you need discipline you need focus you need structure and this is the ultimate chance to say we have everything what we need to have a thriving internal tourism economy which celebrates all of the positive contributions that tourism has not just employment, storytelling potential for learning and contributing to environmental aims et cetera there's so many good aspects of tourism we have to focus on every one of them and rebuild it in a very different way and I know it is really hard for some people it is really hard for us I'm not saying it's easy but we actually don't have a choice and it happens to align with it's the best thing we can do anyway so there's no reason not to do any of those things you very rarely have that sort of alignment you need to do this and you have to do this so let's get on with doing it yeah that's a good point like your analogy there if you want to get Kiwis on board with something use a rugby analogy but I'd love to unpack that a little further with you Trent how much do you think this needs to be driven by individual tourism operators that are really leaning in with on the ground solutions and how much do you think it really needs to be something that's driven by policy or from above okay so maybe obvious statement both are very important I believe that people have been leaning very heavily on our government to come up with all the solutions I believe that collaboration is the only way in which we're going to do it in a meaningful and significant manner so it's not up to one organisation one business to do it but relying on others to do it is also not an option so that's a very sort of middle of the road to answer on all of those things but what I would say my analogy to this scenario is we stopped the bleeding but no one's working on patient management and I believe the reason I'm in business and not education and not architecture and not other planning and other things that I was very interested in is because I believe that business can be agile I believe that business can make a choice very quickly I have not seen the type of leadership that I would like to see and I'm not saying I have all the solutions I'm saying I would like to see other people dig really deep into this and start to really think about what the recreation of a better tourism ecosystem looks like Got it Got it We've seen recently with MPI Ministry of Primary Industries bringing together quite a few agriculture groups under their tatayo of Banner to look at regenerative agriculture as one potential solution Larissa, do you see something similar like that happening perhaps with tourism? I might phrase someone over to Suzanne too because she's probably going to have more insight on that but yeah absolutely I think there's an opportunity here to build a framework that everyone buys into with the core principles that guide us on that so we're starting, I know Suzanne and I and Anna and Kristen we've had discussions quite early in the piece with this actually I think it was during the COVID lockdown about how we do create a movement here and how we get the right people at the right table to move this further I know we've put a stake in the ground and this is our strategy we're doing it but it would be good as a nation that we have the right people at the table to come on this journey and then sometimes you see there's always the people who go ahead and then people are watching and then they can see the benefit and they will come on but we do, I know Suzanne is there with us on the other side and Kristen would like this to be a bigger movement for New Zealand Got it There are perhaps pointing to any situations overseas where you have seen a lot of diverse tourism groups coming together under a central strategy Well it's always a question who does it best in the world maybe just in the New Zealand context we are starting a future tourism task force which will be a mix of industry and government and they will have an advisory group a wider one that can really connect into the different subgroups of the sector so that's a really good start we've got a tourism strategy which provides also a good start doesn't quite go far enough but definitely has the core where we can then add the depth of regenerative tourism and the thinking that comes with it I think there's still work to be done in terms of some of the key questions and it is good the audience is really on top of the questions I mean the international air travel is one to what extent do we need it you know it is a bit like the fertilizer and agriculture how much do we want to rely on that is that a good thing so there's some key questions around the values what do we want I think once we have that common song sheets then I think industry does what industry does best and we've got some amazing innovative entrepreneurs to really push the boundary and for government policy to make sure that the general standard is lifted more things like for example Norway has declared that from 2026 the fuels the cruise ships and the fuels are zero emissions if a ship doesn't comply they can't come so there's some legislation that really eliminates some things that are bad practice bringing that up having maybe mandatory carbon reporting for tourism in New Zealand would be great having support programmes around research and innovation to drive some of that new thinking integrated so I think everyone has to work on this together around a common vision it's an interesting point about the zero emissions cruise ships there's a question here from Trevor Richards in the Q&A who points out that New Zealand was discovered on the wind and is it somewhat of a sailing destination do you think there's opportunities for the cruise industry to be constructed to wind travel imagine those would be some pretty hefty sails but how could New Zealand perhaps lead the world in sustainable ship design for bringing tourists over and the cruise ship and the industry is obviously a big item and something that we really have to look at very carefully in the moment there's highly unsustainable lateral I'm not regenerative but Japan for example is doing some research into renewable cruise ships and they also have plastic solar panels and all of that so I'm not saying it won't happen I think just like an aviation where we need to invest heavily into alternative fuels for the long term because otherwise we will be a very remote island in the future so we need that and I do like the idea of cruise ships that run on renewable energy they will not have 5000 people on them it will be smaller scale and that could be a good thing because communities are not overrun by people then it could be a better balance but it brings it again back to the question should we try then having less volume but do that really well maybe charge more for it, get more value out of it and then be able to actually for example fuel it with renewable energy and that goes for cruise ships just like for airplanes okay got it there's another question I'd love to put you to quickly hear from Maddie Wall is there anything that New Zealand can learn from Bhutan as a potential model for our new look tourism industry I mean the good thing about the Bhutan policy is that essentially well it charges people a fair price because it's a highly exclusive product and there's counter arguments to that as well it makes people stay for a minimum length of time and it actually then gives a discount to that daily tax that you have to pay essentially if you stay longer than 14 days it progressively gets less which is a really good idea so I think that's good on the other hand of course I don't think we're quite as it's in some ways quite top-down autocratic and what I would like to see for New Zealand is much more of a bottom-up approach where actually destinations and communities I'm powered to decide what they want a bit like Larissa has painted the picture for the Bay of Plenty rather than just government saying okay this is how much we want you know so it's a mix of some good interesting elements from Bhutan but probably not quite the approach that works for New Zealand Okay got it thank you for those insights Larissa I'd love to put to you a question again from the Q&A box here around Bay of Plenty potentially utilising the relationship possibilities offered via Airbnb in new ways so thinking really in quite creative ways could Airbnb be hosting farmers that are needed perhaps or seasonal migrant workers to be picking the kiwi fruit that we've got in the Bay of Plenty or is there other sorts of other sports sorts of ways that we can be using that potential of those empty houses or empty rooms Yes and good question I believe we're doing some of that already in the Bay and Airbnb for my understanding was quite quick to pivot when we hit COVID and some of them went back into rental or they were looking at alternative use for accommodation and what was really neat to see in the community here is the external agencies came together quite fast and put their thinking caps on and went back out and say is this something that will work can we move people from here to here we're just like with jobs when the tourism industry you're letting go of staff here you don't need them at the moment can we get them to kiwi fruit so that happens quite swiftly here so I do a mara region for what they did there and that's the same opportunity with Airbnb and accommodation they do a pivot but people just putting on their thinking cap and thinking what do we do in this transition period for the new norm as well for the future and how can the community support that OK wonderful I've got one quick question for Trent and then we're going to go to a final question for the whole panel Trent what do you think this is a bit of a left field one what do you think about the role of technology in the future in tourism I mean if this COVID thing really drags out can we start seeing something like VR or AR supported tourism experiences that don't require feats on the actual literal ground my view is from a practical view I think that augmented reality has a deeper opportunity than virtual reality I think that virtual reality has pre and post experience possibilities my view on augmented is absolutely I think that it can create a deeper or different type of storytelling will it take over tourism and tourism experiences I don't think so I think it will just supplement what we currently have and I'm myself a very keen traveller and you can judge me on that if you like but I think that the chance to go to a place which is quite different and has a culturally different view and your minority is something that I want to hold on to that's why I want to be doing tourism and we need to be able to do it better in terms of technology I think that it has a supplementary piece only for this yeah got it there is nothing quite like the first-hand experience we are coming up towards the top of the hour shortly so I'd like to put one final question to the panel and it's the question that came through from Sam Bro if you had to profile the socially and environmentally conscious tourist of the future that New Zealand wants to see how would you describe that person or like to ask you each that question let's start with you Trent and let's keep the answers pretty short say 30 seconds I would like to have a tourist who considered what they could do to contribute to the place that they visited nice succinct love it Suzanne what would you like to see in that tourist I think the word mindful comes to mind people are mindful of what they do, where they are and who they interact with and consider it and seek to give back and not just take mindful is a very good word indeed Larissa what would that tourist look like to you a line different along the same lines as what Trent Suzanne said more consciously a tourist who's aware of the ancient wisdom, the new science in terms of and really buys into this ecosystem approach and I think if we've got that perspective and you're walking with that as the new way of seeing the world you will show up naturally and treat the environment differently, have different interactions with other people and generally from that place want to give back because you see that there's a higher purpose with all of this Yes absolutely and I think as Trent put earlier on is to have people developing relationships with places that they become repeat tourists and they're actually developing an ongoing give and take connection with places that they're visiting and the communities of course as well Hey fantastic to have you all thank you so much for giving your time so generously today to chat with us about regenerative tourism it's been a really exciting conversation I'm sorry we haven't had a chance to get to everybody's questions if your advantage will be answering some of those questions on their social media in the coming weeks and continuing this conversation about regeneration we have one final episode left in this our regenerative future series and that is next Monday evening it is the toward a regenerative economy for Aotearoa New Zealand episode and we're going to be inviting some of our past panellists back for a final discussion it's a 19 minute special so we'll have a little more space in that one but we're very very fortunate to have Dame and Sammons joining us again for that discussion along with business journalist Rod Orham Mike Taitoko who's from Tōhā Foundry helping with investing in supporting regenerative projects and also Hamish Bielski who is a regenerative sheep and beef farmer from down in Otago and has been doing some amazing things so that's going to be a really exciting session really talking about integrated solutions and looking at how we can put systems change at the centre of a regenerative economy strategy for New Zealand going forward. Thank you again so much for joining us today it's been wonderful to have everybody on the call and we will see you next week Ka kite ano! Ka kite!