New campaign to guide tourism in North Canterbury as borders reopen
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.”
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Kalle
"Sports and travelling run in the family, and that's kind of what's led me to come to New Zealand."
"I grew up in a small town in Finland. My dad was involved with sports all his life, he was a shot putter, discus thrower, powerlifter, we traveled quite a bit when I was a kid. He never mentioned much of the rugby days. He just said he broke both of his shin bones playing rugby, so he said, ‘never play the sport, It's crazy.’
I started playing when I was 18. I played my first cap for the Finnish national team in 2014, we won the Finnish championship with my club. Rugby is not a big thing in Finland.
I moved here to play rugby in 2017. The club that wanted me to come over was Methven Rugby Club. They got me here and they were like, ‘what do you do for work? I’d just finished chef school in Finland. ‘We'll get you a job at Mount Hutt as a chef, you can do that while you play rugby with us.’ I said, ‘Perfect. Yeah, I'm in’.
I've always loved food. My mum was an amazing cook, and still is. When I was studying tourism I worked in some hotels in Finland, and I saw how the chef's worked. I just loved the kitchen vibe and I was like, Yeah, that’d be something I'd love to do.
I've had more of a culinary journey In New Zealand than in Finland. I started at Mount Hutt, after that I worked at The Dubliner in Methven. I worked as a senior pizza chef at Sal’s for maybe six months then worked as chef de partie at Cellar Door. At Eliza's Manor, I worked myself up to a junior sous chef. Then the opportunity came to work my first head chef job at Moon Under Water.
We're privileged to have a busy atmosphere, we can try new things and get a bit creative. There are no TV’s, just come here with your family or with your mates, play board games, to socialise.
I really want to drive the local food and ingredients through the menu. We don't mind spending more for quality ingredients as long as it's supporting New Zealand businesses. We just love to use local. And it's pub food, but I feel like it's elevated.
I play club rugby here for the Christchurch Football Club, the oldest club in New Zealand and I still play regularly for the Finnish national team, whenever they can fly me over to play."
- Kalle
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