BYATA Conference Press Release
11/11/2015
BYATA Bang it Out in Rotorua!
The sound of the Powhiri echoed through the halls of Rotorua’s Distinction Hotel last Wednesday 14th October, stunning the delegates into silence and ensuring that the annual Backpacker Youth & Adventure Tourism Association (BYATA) Conference started with the appropriate bang!
It was an action packed couple of days with a full agenda and an amazing line up of speakers that struck the perfect balance between practical, actionable, business-relevant information and insight and genuinely awe inspiring incredible New Zealander’s making a difference in a very real way.
Research Focus:
There was a strong focus on research, with not just the how’s and why’s being covered off but valuable insights being shared: Kellie Larson from Tourism New Zealand shared the latest numbers as well as some insightful qualitative research (courtesy of Big Picture) specific to the backpacker segment, but I can’t give it all away, you should have been there!
Bevan Wait from Distill Research gave us an overview of the International Visitor Survey (IVS) plus a sneak peak of some of the information contained in the BYATA Market Snapshots; excellent info, very well presented – for those that missed out the USA Market Snapshot is available free of charge on the BYATA website. Angus and Associates also shared some of the insights from the BYATA tracking research, again some incredibly valuable industry insight, get involved if you aren’t already.
Practical Business Relevant Sessions:
There were practical in-depth sessions with Andrew Johns from the Ministry of Business and Employment doing a deep dive into all things Visa related; Trudy McDonald from Talent Co, focusing on driving employee engagement; happy staff lead to happy customers so we should all be putting our staff first to make sure they can and do go the extra mile for our customers. Gary Delbridge from Objective Assessment was there to teach us all how to do a better job of selling our experiences and Clinton Cardoczo from String Theory was on hand to teach us about rapid prototyping to make sure we are all well equipped to come up with the next newest greatest thing in the tourism space. Look out New Zealand if the ideas in the room were anything to go by!
Inspiring New Zealanders:
There was also the chance to hear from some truly amazing New Zealanders who are doing truly extraordinary things: Dave Williams, quiet and unassuming in appearance who is quietly taking on ALL 7 of the world’s HIGHEST PEAKS from sea to summit In order to raise awareness and funds for Men’s Mental Health in NZ, he shared just a snippet of his incredible journey and I think most of us would quite happily have listened to him all day. He taught us about focus, drive, determination and the importance of naivety.
Tak Mutu from Multi Day Adventures shared his incredible story; from concept to go in less than 6 months for one of the world’s largest events – Crankworx is an incredible example of what can be achieved when you put your mind, heart and soul into it.
Finally Billie Jordan from Discover Me Travel who shared the inspirational story of Hip Op-eration; the oldest hip hop dance crew in the world who performed at the LA world championships and who made us think differently about the ‘Grey Tsunami’ and taught us all more than a thing or two about creating amazing customer experiences and giving our customers a piece of ourselves to take home with them.
Throw in beers, thrills and spills at Agroventures (plus the all-important ‘networking’!), and all in all it was an incredibly worthwhile couple of days out of the office!
Get involved:
There are currently 8 people vying for 3 places on the 2015/16 Board as such we will be calling for members to vote very soon, please keep an eye on your inbox for further information.
Presentations from the conference will be available to members on the BYATA website. For everyone else, it’s not too late to join, BYATA continue to look for new members so join now and gain access to a wealth of research, advocacy support and conference papers. www.byata.org.nz
