New campaign to guide tourism in North Canterbury as borders reopen

Nicole Mathewson Reporter from Northern Outlook

North Canterbury’s Hurunui district is working on a plan to welcome back visitors in a way that will have the community’s needs at its core.

Visit Hurunui’s new campaign – Let’s Have a Yarn – includes a destination management plan to make sure tourism benefits everyone once New Zealand’s borders fully open again.

Marketing manager Shane Adcock said the plan was essential as tourism was growing at an “unprecedented rate prior to the pandemic”.

“In Hurunui, we were just starting to feel the impact of that growth, so we now have a chance to plan ahead and ensure that tourism can grow alongside our communities.”

Fifth generation Hurunui farmer Scotty Bamford, who features in the campaign, said he loved Hurunui, with its beaches, mountains, farmland, and the popular alpine thermal resort in Hanmer Springs.

“You can do a bit of everything and generally not bump into a lot of people”, which Bamford said was “probably New Zealand’s best keep secret”.

Hurunui locals have been asked to provide feedback and ideas for the region’s management plan through in-person sessions or online.

Questions posed to the community included what they loved about the region, what opportunities tourism could provide, what challenges were being faced and what must be protected.

“We really want our communities across Hurunui to have a yarn with us in person, but if they can’t make one of the drop-in sessions, they can spin their own online,” Adcock said.

“We’ve made this really accessible because we do want this to be a destination management plan reflective of our communities.”