Jane Nees BOP Regional Councillor www.janenees.co.nz

The power of and scale of the new Auckland Council is causing other regions to look at how they do things. For us in the Bay of Plenty, it is crucial that we establish a culture of long-term collaboration on significant strategic issues across the region and across the whole of the upper North Island.

Take the economic development space for example. We are fortunate that the Bay of Plenty has an overarching Bay of Connections economic development strategy, supported by individual strategies for various key sectors.

These individual strategies are industry-led and transcend district boundaries. However, while tourism was identified as a key sector for the Bay of Plenty, no tourism strategy has yet been developed for the region because there was not strong sector buy-in. There has been resistance to taking a regional approach to tourism because of a competitive attitude in tourism marketing – particularly between Tauranga and Rotorua.

This seems such a shame to me. For example, Australia continues to be New Zealand's most important market in terms of visitor numbers, and Tourism New Zealand forecasts are for Australian visitor arrivals to reach 1.64 million in 2018. Australian visitors tend to be 'free independent travellers” which means they fly in and drive themselves around - they don't just come to visit one destination unless they are here for a specific reason.

The key is to work with other destinations to become part of a compelling story to choose New Zealand, and within this, encourage visitors to choose destinations in the central North Island and the Bay of Plenty. Working together to attract tourists means resources and value propositions can be leveraged to have greater pulling power.

If you have any views on this or any other issue, please contact me on neesj@xtra.co.nz or ring me on 07 579-5150. Or you can visit my website: www.janenees.co.nz