August 06, 2020
Mauri whenua, mauri tangata recipe for tourism future
A member of the Tourism Futures Taskforce is encouraging the industry to reconnect with its Māori roots.
Ngāti Kahungunu leader Ngahiwi Tomoana has been appointed to give the advisory body a Māori perspective as the industry looks for ways it can survive and thrive after COVID-19..
Mr Tomoana says over the past 20 years or so the industry has come to rely on white knuckle activities like bungy jumping, jetboating, whitewater rafting as well as hunting and fishing.
"The Māori side hasn't even been tapped into and people would say 'we're sick of hongi, haka and hangi,' but actually those are metaphors for this 1000 years of splendid isolation in which we developed who are and we used the mauri of the whenua to bring the mauri to the tangata and this mauri tangata is now ready to be received by the rest of the world," he says.
Ngahiwi Tomoana says the blockbuster tourism operators cracked under the COVID-19 border restrictions.
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