Matt Cowley Tauranga City Councillor

Tourism in the Bay is booming. It's in part due to lots of events happening. It's also due to an eight per cent growth of international visitors arriving in NZ from last year.

Once we have attracted tourists into the Bay, we need to inform them of what's available so they want to stay longer.

More tourists are becoming comfortable with searching for information and purchasing over the internet – I'm one of them. But we can't just rely on internet – not yet anyway.

The retiring baby-boomer population is currently the most lucrative tourist segment. They are becoming more tech savvy, but research shows they generally still like the personal touch when making purchasing decisions.

I believe physical i-Site buildings are still relevant in the short to medium future. Tourists currently spend close to $800 million per year within the coastal Bay of Plenty region. A $1 million building is a small investment to help encourage more tourism spending.

We're proposing an evolution from the original i-site on Salisbury Ave in the Mount. It was closed in 2010 due to financial constraints of the global financial crisis and the urgent need to cater to the growing cruise ship market.

Did you know that more than half of cruise visitors stay in the Western Bay and have not prepaid for a tour? These tourists need help finding out what's available to them soon after they step ashore.

But the two shipping containers that make up the current i-port can't handle the growth of cruise visitors. It's also five years old and needs urgent repairs.

We're proposing a solution to cater to both cruise visitors and general tourists. Previous i-sites have only served one or the other. Location is critical to the i-site's success.

We're also proposing to better align tourism information along the coast. This will mean tourists will get the same experience whether in the Mount, Katikati, Te Puke or Whakatane.

Feel free to email me your thoughts (matt.cowley@tauranga.govt.nz), call/text me on 0276989548, and follow me at www.facebook.com/a.younger.voice