This year’s annual Tourism Industry Aotearoa (TIA) Summit will take place next week on 5-6 November. The Summit is taking place in Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland and will be hosted at the Cordis in the central city. This is a ‘must-attend’ event for the tourism industry. It brings together more than 300 business and industry leaders from around New Zealand as well as national and regional/local government policy makers.
The theme for this year’s Summit is Visitor Experience (VX) in a Changing World. This is such a topical theme given the changes in technologies that are now redefining and reshaping visitor experiences that are being delivered by innovative and ambitious businesses in world-leading destinations. Given that Aotearoa/New Zealand is globally recognised for its thought leadership, influence and innovation in tourism, this promises to be a really engaging and eye-opening summit.
The focus on visitors experiences in a change world obviously dovetails beautifully with our MBIE Endeavour research programme titled ‘He karapitipitinga mariko – Immersive regenerative tourism experiences in Aotearoa’. Our interdisciplinary project seeks to find ways to turn challenges into opportunities, researching and enabling new forms of physical (in-person) and virtual/augmented visitor experiences. Our research programme explores opportunities to create immersive and interactive tourism experiences using techniques from virtual and augmented realities.
The tourism technologies that we are developing will allow tourists to experience remote tourist attractions by ‘virtually being there’, or by augmenting visitor experiences when physically present. And my colleagues in computing and indigenous studies will be showcase the technologies that they are developing at the summit next week. We are excited to share some demos with delegates at the summit and open conversations with those who are interested to discuss the potential and possibilities that these technologies will create
Following the Summit on the evening of 67 November the New Zealand Tourism Awards will recognise and celebrate excellence in tourism across a range of categories. It promises to be a interesting and thought-provoking couple of days.
Here is the link to the TIA Summit website: https://www.tia.org.nz/events/tourism-summit-aotearoa/
