Wanganui rejected for tourism region

Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 3, Issue 22, 22 October 1985, Page 5

Wanganui rejected for tourism region

The Wanganui United Council area was excluded from a proposed central regional tourist organisation at a meeting held in Ohakune last week. The meeting, which included representatives from Taupo, Taumarunui, Taihape, Wanganui and the Ruapehu region, was the third to attempt to set up a regional tourist body for the central North Island after Government moves earlier this year to encourage local initiatives in tourism.

MINISTER

In May the Minister of Tourism, Mr Mike Moore, had announced grants of $5000 to tourism organisations based on the boundaries of united and regional councils throughout New Zealand, to help them prepare regional tourism marketing plans. With a possible contribution of another $5000 from the Wanganui United Council a combined Wanganui and Tongariro tourist region would have had $15,000 to get their plan off the ground.

Taumarunui and Taihape representatives however argued strongly that there was little commonality of interest between themselves and some of the Wanganui United Council areas such as Bulls and Hunterville. "The concept of the whole region is not naturally marketable - if we try and combine them we'll all miss out," said Mark Ebrey from Taumarunui. "It's a totally different world down there — we should promotean area that naturally fits together otherwise we'll bend the rules to make it fit — even if Wanganui is excjuded it doesn't mean there won't be cooperation,"said Brian Sage from Taumarunui. Ron Howe of Hospitality Wanganui however pointed out that the strength of the proposed region would be in its varied parts and that it would be unpalatable for the Wanganui River to be split between two regions. Annette Main, Wanganui Hospitality information officer, said the exclusion of Wanganui would be unfair as Wanganui City and Hospitality Wanganui worked to promote the whole region, not just the city of Wanganui.

RUAPEHU

John Sandford, representing the Ruapehu region, spoke on the proposed marketing plan and said boundaries didn't matter anyway because a good marketing consultant would gather the varied components of the region into a workable plan. "Each of those components would be able to do their own thing within the overall plan," he said. After extensive d iscussio'n a Taumarunui-sponsored motion that the tourist region should be based on the boundaries of the Tongariro United Council area — thus excluding the Wanganui United Council area — but with Ohakune, Raetihi and Taihape invited to join, was passed, with Taumarunui, Taupo and Taihape for

it and Ruapehu and Wanganui against. After further discussion Wanganui was invited to attend meetings of the tourism group as observer. John Sandford said it was unfortunate that the regions were split as it meant overlap of effort and dissipation of resources which could have been combined to produce a workable plan. The rest of the meeting discussed ways of developing the marketing plan and of formalising the structure of the group. Joseph Lane, of Taupo, elected chairman for the day, said that basic information about each local area was needed. "The strength of the regional organisation will be based on its weakest element and that depends on getting detailed knowledge about the component areas," he said.

SURVEY

John Sandford proposed that each of the local tourism groups prepare a visitor survey and a resource inventory of what they had to offer by mid-February 1 986, and this was agreed to. The steering committee is to meet again on T uesday 1 9 November in T urangi to discuss formalising the structure of the organisation and to deal with issues such as finance, membership and election of officers. Meantime individual groups are to work ahead on their visitor surveys and resource inventories. Discussion of the name of the group was deferred as it was felt that once the features of the region had been defined the name would naturally follow.