Latest TIA Blog

	Building a strong future for TIA and the tourism industry
	By TIM COSSAR - 23 April 2010

In recent weeks TIA has introduced a raft of initiatives to add even more value to your membership.

We were excited to launch our new magazine, TO, and are pleased it has been so well received by members. 

Many of you have also signed up to attend our series of online technology and social media workshops being held around the country. This is a topic we know TIA members are keenly interested in learning more about and we are glad to help meet that demand.

Still to come are workshops on employer obligations like ACC and payroll, and marketing tips.  We’re also offering online training that you and your team can do at times convenient to you.

We know that times have been challenging for our industry and I’m proud that we’ve been able to offer these new services without any increase in membership fees for 2010-11.

We’ve also been vigorous in representing you and the issues that matter to tourism businesses to the highest levels.

Some of these are long-term projects that will affect generations to come.  Principle among these is the Land and Water Forum which has brought all major sectors together to look at how we manage our freshwater resources.  This is seeing tourism sit at the same table as agriculture, power generators, conservation and recreation representatives. This is vital in ensuring our interests in freshwater – NZ’s 100% Pure image, outdoor activities – are recognised and valued as much as the use of water for irrigation and power generation.  This will be crucial to the long-term outlook for the tourism industry.

We are also working on more immediate issues for the industry, including freedom camping, safety in adventure tourism, council elections, mining on conservation land, GST and ACC increases, and Rugby World Cup 2011.

This is all part of our effort to build TIA into a high value, highly respected and indispensable organisation that helps build the tourism sector as a strong, vibrant and responsible bedrock industry for New Zealand.

This goal is at the heart of TIA’s three year strategy and our Business Plan for 2010-11.  The TIA Board has recently signed off on these plans that will guide TIA’s activities on your behalf for the next three years.

Our focus will be firmly fixed on:

·         Providing informed leadership to the industry

·         Enhancing industry performance and economic contribution by actively influencing political decision making at all levels of government

·         Providing business support services that add real value to your business.

Over the next few months you’ll be seeing even more new services from your association.  We are increasing our research resource to bring you the information you need to grow your business.  This will mean more analysis of what official statistics are showing, market insights and lessons we can learn from international trends, even before they hit New Zealand.

We want to stay ahead of developments in technology and business practices, so we can pass that information on to you before you need it.

We want to keep tourism’s profile high with government.  We’ve already succeeded in getting the Prime Minister to take on the tourism portfolio – now we want to build on that to increase our influence with the government at all levels.

In all of this, your support is vital.  We look forward to working with you and for you to build our industry to its full potential.