The future of Central Otago as a destination looks bright, with significant investment to be realised in the next two to three years, which would add to the amenities available to the local community and visitors.

That was the message from Tourism Central Otago head of destination Antz Longman when he spoke to the Central Otago District Council at its meeting on Wednesday (July 19).

In his summary accompanying the presentation of a destination management update, Antz said the ongoing investment from both public and private sectors in experiences and infrastructure showed a continued confidence in not only the region’s appeal to visitors, but also as an attractive place to live.

“Our approach to managing and promoting the district through the destination management plan means we are focused on delivering and supporting projects that support our communities’ ambitions for place,” he said. 

“In doing so the tourism industry can live up to its potential as a catalyst for economic, social, cultural and environmental prosperity.”

In a later interview with the Central App, Antz said that destination management was a more holistic approach to tourism than the older marketing model.

“Destination management is an approach to managing tourism and its positive and negative impacts on a region,” he said.

“Central Otago has always had a bit of a focus on destination management but, during Covid, the government gave funding to the 31 regional tourism organisations around New Zealand to create formalised destination management plans, which are really plans for how communities want tourism to be developed in place.

“It’s putting communities first rather than tourism or business.”

The idea was to get the communities’ current impressions of tourism and what they would like the community to be in 50 years time, he said, in what was referred to as a ‘future state’.

“The end outcomes aren’t necessarily a tourism outcome. We want a diverse and accepting community. We want a strong and healthy environment, and sustainable jobs and incomes. We want to be a place that celebrates our events and our seasons.”

It was the council's role to support people’s wellbeing and the destination management plan had been aligned with that, Antz said. 

“While the economic impact of tourism and visitation is one of the measures that is important - we want sustainable ongoing businesses which support employment - there are other benefits that can be derived through tourism for our community that are social and cultural.

“More and more organisations are looking at how we measure the wider impacts of different sectors on our environment, on our cultural and cultural wellbeing as well as our economic.” 

Antz said 65 per cent of Central Otago residents who worked outside of the tourism industry believed the region’s tourism activities and recreational assets were important to the success of the sector in which they worked.

“How do we engage our visitors in supporting those outcomes that are important to our community?” he said. 

“It’s not a purely financial transaction.

“How do we create a connection between the visitor and our place and our people, which makes them leave as an advocate of Central Otago? That might be purely word of mouth, which helps someone else come and experience our place, or it might be that they go and buy Central Otago wine once they’re at home, whether that’s in Auckland, Melbourne or Los Angeles.”

The Destination Management Plan can be found here.