He Tangata - Charting a new course in cultural tourism

Profiling ‘The People’ who are making a difference to Maori tourism in Aotearoa New Zealand

Navigator Tours Ltd is, according to founding partner John Panoho, an idea whose time has come.

Formed last year, the company is the only specialist Maori in-bound tour operator and wholesaler operating in this country and despite its relative newness, it’s beginning to carve a niche for itself in the wider tourism sector.

The small partnership behind the operation includes John Panoho and Dr Peter Phillips, a geographer by profession who has long been assisting indigenous groups within the Cook Islands and throughout Aotearoa New Zealand.

John is a veteran of the New Zealand tourism industry, having now spent 18 years in a variety of enterprises, including some of the country’s most successful and innovative in-bound operations.

His start in tourism came via a mini bus tour operation based in Auckland in the mid 1980s.

But he then went on to be a founder and driving force behind Cultural and Entertainment Tours and later Vision South Pacific, which both carved a reputation as leading in-bound tour operators.

Now John and his partners have created Navigator Tours, building new tour packages which are exclusively Maori in essence and in spirit.

The operators he has pulled together for the Navigator packages are those he can be confident will produce the standard required by New Zealand’s discerning international visitors, dayin, day-out.

John says the 18 years he has spent in the industry has crystallised his thoughts on the whole area of Maori cultural tourism and he is now more convinced than ever that there is room for a specialist in-bound and wholesale company such as Navigator Tours - and that its packages are being put into the market at the right time.

“In the C and E days we were trawling absolutely new waters,” he says. “With Vision South Pacific, the burly trails we put out with our Vision Trails tour programme attracted a variety of fish, but not all of them took the bait.

“Navigator Tours has now positioned itself to understand what bait attracts the fish.

“For the first time, there will be a menu of indigenous tourism products able to be accessed through one portal and made available as short-break options for inclusion in FIT or small group itineraries.”

Having spent most of the last 20 years working among Maori communities throughout Aotearoa New Zealand, John says he has seen a progressive build-up of quality cultural tourism products and this has encouraged him and his partners to enter unchartered waters in the new enterprise that is Navigator Tours.

But of one thing he is adamant – his new company will not be delving into the cut-throat world of big-group coach tours, a sector which has left him feeling ‘wrung out’ in the past.

“As an in-bound operator, Navigator Tours will be handling requests for small special interest groups from the mid to upper end of the market,” he says.

“And as a wholesaler, we’ll be offering packages for small groups and FITs, entirely focused on the new cultural tourism products which have proven themselves to fit with our core values of delivering quality experiences centred on Maori people, Maori places and Maori hospitality,” he says.

In that regard John Panoho has almost come back to where he started.

The difference though is that it is a much wiser, more astute, experienced and worldly-wise head beneath that distinguished, greying hair these days.

NAVIGATOR TOURS LTD

John Panoho
Director of Sales and Marketing
Private Bag 1, Helensville, Auckland

Phone: +64 9 817 1191
Fax: +64 9 817 5346
E-mail:
Website: www.navigatortours.co.nz