21 October, 2013: 

Results from this year’s Air New Zealand Cook Island Tourism Awards have proven that events such as the tourism awards can help improve business performance and drive innovation. The Awards, held every two years since being introduced in 2009, have helped raise the bar in the overall performance of the Cook Islands tourism sector.   These  improvements show through in the entries submitted, in sections such as; marketing, operations and processes, culture and heritage, environment and sustainability and human resources & people management.

Ross McLauchlan, of Oceania Tourism Group, the company appointed to manage and assess entries, says the quality of entries in this year’s awards was far above those from the two previous Awards. “The Awards were put in place to get businesses who rely on tourism, to look at their operation, and find holes in what they were doing from a business perspective. Its been really encouraging to see those who have over the last four years used the Awards business analysis process to improve business performance, especially when it has been a very good year for visitor numbers.

The theme of this year’s awards was Customer Care. The finalists will be named this week and the winners awarded at a special dinner in Rarotonga on 15 November.