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Insights

Field notes on what works, what doesn't, and why the best tourism businesses aren't always the busiest.

5 December 2025Case Study: Elevating Destination Visitor ExperiencesHow Dunedin’s tourism team used experience design to turn good products into memorable onesDunedin has no shortage of passionate operators and unique…
7 October 2025Product development > tourism marketingProduct development should always be prioritised before tourism marketing.Without something to do, you got nothin to promote. This is obvious but so…
10 July 2025Mountain Club PodcastCan't help but be optimistic about the future of tourism, experiences and Queenstown as a destination/place to live after a conversation like…
7 July 2025How we can actually leverage increased Trans Tasman CapacityLooking out the office window and it's clear Qantas is, and has been, cranking up capacity.Air NZ is ramping up its flights to Australia too...The…
1 July 2025The Business Of Creative TourismUsually I'm working with tourism people to unlock some creativity and new results. This workshop with the Three Lakes Cultural Trust - "The Business…
24 June 2025“Whatever you said to our commercial team about experience design.. it worked”That’s the real unlock many large tourism businesses are chasing: where experience + commercial teams invest in the guest experience together and…
11 June 2025What to avoid in experience designWhen I ventured around Queenstown last week, I got a sharp reminder of what we all need to avoid.The travel industries biggest threat... the…
2 June 2025I need to find a better way of saying what I do (my wife still can't explain it to her friends).I need to find a better way of saying what I do (my wife still can't explain it to her friends).But May was a fun month and demonstrates some of the…
13 May 2025Tourism in NZ was never meant to play by the rulesNew Zealand tourism can be a wild ride: it splutters, it stalls, it gets close to crashing… and then... it takes off again.We’ve lived through booms,…
21 April 2025What if our plan for more visitors fails?Tourism in NZ has one of the lowest labour productivity rates in the country. Which means for every hour we work we make less money than almost…