So what's been happening over the past couple of weeks? Here's a selection of news that we have casually noted while the Motella Blog was enjoying a well deserved summer break:
Just before heading off to the beach, Qualmark NZ announced: Major Changes in their Business.
It will be interesting to see if Qualmark's striking new boss, Paula McCallum can make the impossible happen, by making her taxpayer hungry organisation self-sustaining before the next National lead government exits the business of benchmarking tourism operations towards the end of their second successive term.
We were dismayed at a puff-piece in the New Zealand Herald: Vacancies disaster' for motels that was timed to coincide with the beginning of the holiday season. Using unrelated statistics from October's commercial accommodation monitor, the article wrote-off the pending Christmas/New Year holiday period for the motel sector with selected quotes from moteliers "describing this holiday season as "disastrous" and "the worst yet."
It was interesting to compare a contrasting New Zealand Herald article a few days later: Northern campsites chock a block that put a positive spin on the Holiday Parks sector.
It was unfortunate that there was a perception that the motel sector in the doldrums, while the Holiday Parks sector were happily hosting an increasing demand of guests looking bask in the sunshine of the quintessential Kiwi holiday. The commercial accommodation monitor for January may in fact end up reflecting this, however this is not the point. In spite of the media's intoxication with reporting scenes of happy Kiwis camping over the Christmas/New Year holiday season, the motel sector should be seriously countering this with their own positive spin...or if this is too taxing, then simply STFU!
We see that Tourism New Zealand has caved-in to environmental zealots by unveiling their new moniker, "100% Pure You." Do tourists really care about these publicly funded self-masturbatory campaigns anymore and will adding "you" to 100% Pure shut-up environmental hand-wringers?
We note that the Motel Association have started back to work early by raising the perennial issue of residential rated accommodation properties that are not being under-taxed with the confusing newspaper headline: Motels accused of ratepayer ripoff.
We were amused but not surprised to learn that Labour Tourism Spokesperson, Kelvin "Little School" Davis has a concern over conservation camping ground plan.
So that's it so far...Later this year the nation will be distracted with the the Rugby World Cup and a general election. We reckon that 2011 will be a colourful and challenging year. There will be plenty of spin and blogs will again provide the best down-to-earth commentary as events unfold.
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