This multi-disciplinary project was undertaken for a number of stakeholders. It examined a series of opportunities in cultural outdoor recreation activities (such as guided walking and kayaking), and in cultural tourism development.
The project was designed to provide a strong research base for strategic business planning and visitor experience creation. It involved undertaking 2,500 questionnaire surveys, 30 focus group sessions plus a series of one-on-one visitor interviews.
This project remains one of New Zealand’s largest cultural tourism research projects. The first visitor product to emerge from the research: Footprints Waipoua. Featuring night time forest walks, guided by local Maori who interpret the native forest and landscape, Footprints Waipoua was immediately selected as one of the world’s top 100 international eco tourism experiences in Lonely Planet’s Code Green — Experiences of a Lifetime.