| 19 T T Virginia Wright Vineyard touring made easy on bikes Explore Marlborough bike-hire and tour company is a thriving hub of local tourism. REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT Marlborough Chamber - Explore Marlborough When Kathryn Walker and her partner Andrew Allan (aka Kat and Roo) bought Explore Marlborough, it had already been going for nine years. Putting their combined expertise into this new venture was, as Kat puts it: “Essentially, us buying our dream and now two of our five children are part of the business. Tayla, who works in customer experience and marketing and is based here in Blenheim, and Ben, who is a shareholder and supports us on new technology and systems and who lives in London. Then the rest of the ‘whanau’ is our 20 amazing guides.” It’s three years since Kat and Roo made the decision to put their love for cycling, their knowledge of the wine industry, and their knowledge and love for the region into something they could do together. Since then, they have steadily grown the Explore Marlborough bike-hire and tour company, added new products, and turned it into the thriving hub of local tourism it is today. Those guides mentioned are a vital part of their success, which Kat believes is thanks to the level of service they provide. And whether the tours are guided or unguided, Explore Marlborough provides detailed maps, along with modern, easy-to-ride, well-cared-for e-bikes to ride from vineyard to vineyard. They offer in-depth information about the region as a whole, as well as about the specific wines being tasted, along with the pick-ups and drop-offs, which make life easy. “The specialist product we do is guided or self-guided biking wine tours, and we’re the only one in New Zealand doing it at the scale we do, running about 500 guided tours a year with about 6000 people coming through our doors if you combine all the tours,” says Kat. Bikes are still at the heart of what they do, but they have added driving tours to their offerings, and those tours tend towards the growing luxury end of the market, Kat explains. ‘We don’t do van tours, we offer guided driving tours in luxury Mercedes SUVs, and although wine is still our core focus, we’re part of the broader Destination Marlborough strategy, so we partner with other companies to showcase all the other amazing things our region has to offer. “We’re designing bespoke tours with a guide, which may be focused on wine or include specialist food producers, garden tours or anything else that our clients want to experience.” Whether the clients have come to Explore Marlborough directly, or through a travel agent, there’s nothing off the shelf about those tours. They start with a discussion about which venues and private experiences the clients would most like to enjoy. This might, for example, include visiting wineries with Marlborist Winery owner and winemaker Richard Ellis, and a chef-prepared lunch, as he shares his knowledge of the local industry and its history along with some carefully chosen wine. Whether their clients prefer two wheels or four, guided tours or doing it for themselves, Explore Marlborough currently operates those tours from the Vines Village nestled among the vineyards. They will be opening a second office in the Blenheim CBD once it’s completed, sharing a site with a 100-bed luxury hotel currently under construction, and poised to service the 240-kilometre Whale Trail, which will add a huge boost to tourism along its length. In the meantime, whether you’re after a three-hour bike hire for $45, or your own bespoke luxury tour for $10,000, Explore Marlborough and its team are ready to give you exactly what you need. Have us plan your next Marlborough Adventure! Corporate rates available www.exploremarlborough.co.nz IT’S KIWI FOR ELEGANCE PLEASE DRINK RESPONSIBLY Organic, boutique, truly hand-crafted wines TQZWBMMFZ DP O[ &OKPZ B QMBUUFS BOE B HMBTT PG XJOF BNPOH UIF WJOFT 6TF DPEF 4&&,41: .POEBZ 4BUVSEBZ BN QN A339 A>G 47<2 E6G $&--"3 %003 /08 01&/
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