i-Site representatives from around the Waikato in Cambridge.
Destination Cambridge has revealed it is exploring an independent tourism hub incorporating a visitor centre following Waipā District Council’s decision to cut its annual funding.
The move to “go it alone” has been endorsed by the organisation’s board following an uproar from the tourism industry and the community, general manager Ruth Crampton told The News.
Destination Cambridge general manager Ruth Crampton. Photo: Mary Anne Gill.
It would be anchored by a partnership with the country’s largest rural tours’ operator and other tourism businesses.
Crampton said the council’s behind closed doors decision to dump the annual grant – this year worth $157,000 – was made with little input from i-Site operators in Cambridge and Te Awamutu.
“The information they used was flawed and based on visitor numbers over three years when international tourism was affected by Covid. Numbers are back up to pre-Covid levels,” said Crampton.
Her criticism comes as Destination Te Awamutu chair Shane Walsh, who is also chief executive of Te Awamutu Business Chamber, confirmed the council’s decision resulted in two redundancies and a resignation at the town’s i-Site.
There were no redundancies in Cambridge as staff are now working at Rural Tours and Crampton’s contract ends at the end of June.
Shane Walsh
Walsh echoed Crampton’s view by saying there had been no process.
“If there was a process and they told us there was going to be a recommendation, we could have been given an opportunity to convince them otherwise. We didn’t get that opportunity.”
The assumptions council staff made about i-Sites was wrong, he said.
“The work and the strategy of those two organisations suddenly stopped. It was just bang, it was about i-Sites. They said less people use it so we shouldn’t have it. It was a very narrow focus.”
Had they known, Destination Cambridge and Destination Te Awamutu could have worked together and potentially appointed one manager to run two i-Sites, he said.
Crampton and Walsh have both indicated $65,000 retained by the council for its communications team to do “online visitor promotional activity”, should be contestable.
“I think a group of volunteers called Destination Cambridge and Destination Te Awamutu are better equipped to do that because they are in the tourist industry. Instead of spending that money on growing their communications team, I’d rather that comes back to us,” said Walsh.
i-Site members from around the Waikato, including Cambridge’s Ruth Crampton, third right, met in the Cambridge Town Hall this week where manager Simon Brew, second left, gave them a briefing. Photo: Mary Anne Gill.
