It is interesting that Travel Memo have noted that either Tourism New Zealand or the AA have yet to make a statement on the Qualmark CEO's sudden departure:
Qualmark CEO moves onSurprisingly, we have yet to be contacted and offered the vacant CEO position...
Qualmark ceo Geoff Penrose has gone from New Zealand tourism’s official quality assessment agency, apparently without any statement from either of its joint venture partners, Tourism New Zealand or the AA.
During his five years in the role, Penrose and his team grew the total numbers of Qualmark-licenced tourism businesses to 2,300, and 470-plus have been awarded Enviro gold, silver or green status under the Qualmark Green program.
Motel industry blogsite Motella, in a comment on his departure, says Penrose “will probably be most remembered for being at the helm when Qualmark inserted a fashionable and politically correct environmental criteria into their quality assessment under the maternal eye of the previous government.”
“Qualmark have been accused of abandoning its original brief of delivering an efficient quality benchmarking service to tourism businesses by being sidetracked with environmental evangelism.”
Motella wonders whether government-driven budget cuts are imminent for Qualmark and that without continued taxpayer subsidy of its benchmarking of tourism businesses, Qualmark licence fees will need to be hiked. The blogger says such a fee increase could be a difficult sell.
The question is also raised as to whether the Automobile Association is reviewing its involvement.
