Business South August 2020

10 | Volume 29 | Issue 4 businesssouth REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT » Whale Watch Kaikoura Whale Watch looking to the future The Seaward Kaikoura mountain range provides a stunning backdrop to the Kaikoura Peninsula. Kim Newth “We’ve had people coming from all over New Zealand - Auckland, Wellington, Marlborough and Canterbury - ticking off places they’ve most wanted to go with Kaikoura among their top picks.” B uoyed by a $1.5 million Government tourism rescue grant, Whale Watch Kaikoura resumed operating in early July and was fully booked for the busy winter school holidays. “Everybody was pretty excited to be back in uniform and back out on the water,” says the company’s marketing and sales manager Lisa Bond. “Before we reopened, people were still going through here and exploring other local attractions but since we restarted Kaikoura has come alive even more.” A special winter school holiday ‘kids travel free’ deal proved very popular with families, as it has been in previous years. With similar deals being offered by other opera- tors around New Zealand, it has been a bumper winter for domestic tourists. “We’ve had people coming from all over New Zealand - Auckland, Wellington, Marlborough and Canterbury - ticking off places they’ve most wanted to go with Kaikoura among their top picks.” Whale Watch tour visitors have been delighted to see many sperm whales whose feeding grounds are off the coast of Kaikoura, as well as humpback whales that migrate through our coastal waters in the winter months. With school holidays now over, Whale Watch Kaikoura has gone back to predominantly weekend- only tours and operating on public holidays but with flexibility to do extra week day tours to meet demand if needed, for example for school group bookings. Whale Watch Kaikoura was shut for more than 100 days as a result of the Covid-19 situation, twice as long as for the Kaikoura earthquake. That earlier setback proved the resilience of this iconic tourism operation that is now heavily reliant on the domestic market. “More than ever, we love to see people from Canterbury, Nelson-Marlborough and the lower part of the North Island making the effort to come and visit Kaikoura, go whale watching and support other activity providers here as well.” As Lisa observes, the journey from Christchurch to Kaikoura on SH1 is in itself worth the trip to see the new coastline. Information boards at picnic areas along the repaired and upgraded highway help tell the area’s story. The Covid-19 shutdown period was not wasted by Whale Watch Kaikoura, whose team used the time to review its operations so as to come back better than ever. A Qualmark Accredited Gold operator, Whale Watch Kaikoura is also a signatory to the NZ Tour- ism Sustainability Commitment and has made ‘the Tiaki Promise’. “We live by that promise to be guardians in all the decisions we make and everything we do,” Lisa explains. “During the time we were not operating, we asked ourselves ‘are we living up to that promise?’ Coming out the other side, the answer was ‘yes’ though there is always room for improvement.” Whale Watch Kaikoura commissioned a large new vessel last year, which is due to be finished in October. “We’ve been seeing a few photos of it and it’s looking fabulous…Looking ahead, we hope to come through this difficult period - everyone has been working so hard to get where we are now.” The $1.5 million grant from the Government’s strategic tourism assets protection programme affirms Whale Watch Kaikoura’s place as one of this country’s most precious tourism operations.