Intercity Partners With Hokianga our Operators

August 1, 2007

Intercity Partners With Hokianga Maori Tour Operators To Connect Far North

InterCity Group Limited has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with local Maori in the Hokianga to run a daily transport service that will connect the developing tourism destination with the Bay of Islands.

The partnership between 100 per cent Kiwi-owned InterCity Group (ICG) and tour operators Footprints Waipoua and Crossings Hokianga is expected to attract 15,000 more tourists to the Hokianga and inject more that $4million into the local economy during the next three years.

The Memorandum of Understanding between InterCity, Footprints Waipoua, Crossings Hokianga and the Te Hua o te Kawariki Trust was signed at a breakfast ceremony today at the Copthorne Hotel and Resort in Omapere, in the Hokianga.

InterCity Group is New Zealand’s largest land transport and tourism operator and includes Kings Dolphin Cruises & Eco Tours, Newmans Coach Lines and InterCity Coaches.

Footprints Waipoua and Crossings Hokianga are owned by the local residents of the Hokianga and were set up primarily to create new employment and business opportunities for local Maori.

“InterCity Group is committed to working with local Maori to help build responsible tourism in the Hokianga that will benefit the local economy,” said InterCity Group CEO, Malcolm Johns.

Koro Carman, the managing director of Footprints Waipoua and Crossings Hokianga, said the partnership with a well-recognised and reputable company like InterCity Group was the type of sustained, managed tourism initiative that would benefit the Hokianga people.

“Paihia is the key tourist hub in the Bay of Islands and this initiative will allow us to link our unique cultural experience with mainstream tourist itineraries in and out of there,” he said.

Under the Memorandum of Understanding, Kings Dolphin Cruises & Eco Tours, which is part of ICG will run a new coach service between Paihia and the Hokianga from late September that will link into tours offered by Footprints Waipoua and Crossings Hokianga.

Footprints Waipoua and Crossings Hokianga will retain full control of their tours, which give visitors a life-changing cultural, spiritual and educational experience based on the history of the Hokianga people and their relationship with the land, forest and sea.

InterCity Group, which bought Kings Dolphin Cruises & Eco Tours in 2006, has invested $700,000 to build two coaches in Tauranga for the new Paihia-Hokianga service. The coaches voluntarily meet Euro 3 emissions standards as part of InterCity’s commitment to become the world’s first carbon neutral land transport operator by 2009/10.

Mr Carman said the Hokianga was one of the most beautiful parts of New Zealand.

“Our tours are a unique spiritual, cultural and educational experience. Our guides use Maori song, instruments, language and stories to give visitors a first-hand insight into our Maori heritage,” he said.

Kings plans to offer two new packages that will incorporate the Footprints Waipoua and Crossings Hokianga tours with their other Bay of Islands offerings. Those offerings include dolphin watching cruises, a trip to the historic Treaty House at Waitangi and Kings Cape Reinga Day Tour.

On the Footprints Waipoua tour visitors will travel from Opononi in the Hokianga on a Kings coach to the Waipoua Forest. After a half-hour forest walk which includes a visit to see the iconic 2000-year-old Tahe Mahuta – New Zealand’s largest kauri tree – they will return to Opononi for lunch.

They can then take an interpretive, two-and-a-quarter hour Kings Crossings harbour cruise which includes stops at Opononi’s giant sand dunes, the historic Mangungu Mission House and the former ship building community of Kohukohu, which is now an artist’s community.

They will then travel on a Kings coach back to Paihia to join the evening Newmans tourist service to Auckland, or stay in the Bay of Islands.

InterCity and Newmans coaches operate up to 600 seats a day between Auckland and the Bay of Islands in summer.

All tourists visiting the Bay of Islands and the Hokianga on an InterCity, Newmans or Kings coach will create a carbon footprint that is 90 per cent lower than if they had driven themselves in a modern 2.0 litre rental car.

InterCity Group carries more than 1.5 million passengers each year – a third of those are visitors to New Zealand. It also connects around 7,000 tourism businesses across the country.

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