Maori businesses are staking out bold claims in our multi-billion dollar tourism industry, reports Denise McNabb.

How much Maori tourism contributes to the economy in dollar terms has never been quantified. But that's soon to change.

Auckland economic analysis and research company Covec, the Maori Tourism Council and Te Puni Kokiri (Ministry of Maori Development) have joined forces to collect the data and their findings are expected later this year.

By then the figures may already be of date, such is the pace of tourism investment as tribes look to invest their Treaty of Waitangi settlement money in worthwhile ventures.

There are already 400 Maori businesses servicing the tourism sector, 80% of them on the North Island.

Around 35% provide land or water-based guided tours, 16% art product and services, 16% accommodation, 13% attractions and 11% retail outlets, most of which are arts-based.

Those involved in hangi, marae and concert ventures, and restaurants, cafes and transportation each account for less than 10%.

A strategy aimed at creating a national Maori tourism body was mooted in the government's 2010 draft tourism plan two years ago. There are now 11 Maori tourism offices around the country working side by side with regional tourism offices, lifting quality and setting the framework for Maori businesses to work together.

The draft plan has been extended to 2015 and Maori culture features strongly. The government has been the biggest investor in the sector to date but there are indications private sector investment is gaining traction.

It's a sign of changing times in attitude to the value of our Maori heritage to New Zealanders and a need to sate visitors' requirements.

New Zealand Maori Tourism Council chief executive Johnny Edmonds says he doesn't want to be overly optimistic but he's happy about the way things are going.

There's a new awareness, he says.

The greatest contribution Maori can give to New Zealand tourism, he reckons, is to be Maori.

"From a Maori viewpoint it's an important principle that underpins tourism."

As Maori in Tourism Rotorua's chairman, Oscar Nathan puts it: "The proverbial stamp of Maori tourism was based on a branding exercise going back 80 years when we were portrayed as poi twirling, tongue poking and haka performing.

"But now we are an experience."

Tourism, he says, is the rising taniwha joining the traditional staples of farming, fishing and forestry.

He cites South Island tribe Ngai Tahu as an example. It's one of the biggest investors in mainstream New Zealand tourism.

Nathan says non-Maori tourism operators are also infusing the culture into their business.

Nathan is involved with the Poutama Business Trust, a national entity that works off a capital base of $60 million and has extensive domestic and international networks to help Maori grow their business to the next level.

His views echo the sentiments of international travellers, particularly those who are educated, aged over 50, and are from the US, Britain and Europe, and who put culture high on their visit list, often ahead of sightseeing.

But awareness of Maori culture as an experience is imperative to New Zealand tourism success is only part of the equation. The other is getting the business model right.

It's a sensitive issue. For Maori, the bottom line on the statement of financial performance isn't the sole focus.

Whanganui Maori Regional Tourism Organisation's Niko Tangaroa, who operates Waka Tours on the Whanganui River, says there also have to be social, environmental and cultural bottom lines.

Traditionally, he says, Maori business has revolved around whanau.

"The fear of failing in a Maori business is not so much whether you have the next meal on the table but whether you will get aunty or uncle coming along saying what are you doing here boy?" he says.

Nathan says in the past Maori had a one-shot chance when they got into business.

"You mucked it up and you didn't go back."

Now, he says, it's not only about getting involved people who have the qualifications to sustain themselves, but also about giving them support in a window of time where they can build up to a sustainable level.

He says it still about family.

"The challenge is not necessarily about being from a hapu or iwi but getting in and working with your kaumatua.

"It's a matter of how to balance what you want today but unless you have the support of your elders you don't get a base."

Tangaroa says the good thing with the regional structure is Maori are now able to pick out good role models.

"Their pride in the future comes in to it as well. When Maori can stand tall a lot of people will come forward.

"You have to work with your family and iwi in a lot of cases."

Nelson-based Wakatu Incorporation's project manager Ropata Taylor says Maori don't want to be seen as exotic.

"Hangi and haka are not my strengths. Sauvignon blanc, lobsters and scallops are, and you get them on the marae."

Wakatu also exports the food around the world via a website ordering system.

Maori have around 120 products and services on websites.

As project manager for the organisation's tourism sector, Taylor develops and manages indigenous brands for wine, seafood and pipfruit, with an emphasis on global trade.

He is also involved in resource management, economic development, social distribution and political advocacy on behalf of his tribal confederation in the Northern South Island (Te Tau Ihu).

Taylor says the philosophy of Maori is to "indigenise" businesses after buying them.

"We have focused on things such as design to communicate our values to an audience," he says.

"We have provided quality and integrity and our kaumatua have fully supported it."

Wakatu has expanded its business through acquisitions, using its own people for tourism propositions.

"We're at a stage where it is not so much about making money but how we feel about making money."

Tangaroa says tourists once expected to see Maori in grass skirts with moko on their faces, but the reality today is Maori are being themselves in a modern world but still looking to their connection with the land.

"It's about unpeeling the layers and looking at what we are passionate about and getting across that passion rather than us being seen as just a curiosity."

Edmonds says Maori have a distinct way of operating, emphasising self determination (tino rangatiratanga) and the importance of kindred links (whanaungatanga).

Like other cultures, he says, Maoridom is complex.

"We have an opinion on everything," he says. "We are not a part- time culture and not everyone appreciates that.

"But it is changing to a point where we have reached a threshold the industry at large is recognising. Those of us involved in strategic planning know it is important to reform and present ourselves in different ways depending on circumstances."

Maori call it katahitanga - the notion of coming together in different points, sometimes collectively, sometimes alone.

Ahead of the industry, says Edmonds, is the application of manaakitanga (feeling the spirit) and kaitiakitanga (people's relationships with the environment).

Melissa Crockett, 29, a descendant of Nga Puhi, Ngati Kahu and Te Rarawa, last year won the New Zealand Tourism Industry Award for the top young tourism professional for jointly-owned Potiki Adventures.

Neither she nor her business partner, Bianca Ranson, had any tourism experience when they set up their venture in Auckland three years ago. But that was a good thing, says Crockett, because "we didn't have any preconceptions."

They describe Potiki as a contemporary Maori tourism business in that it gives visitors a slice of Maori living in a big city but also in the bush and sea and participation in activities.

She will take visitors to a design store selling a koru on a ring, then take them to the bush where she'll show them the koru in its natural setting.

She'll show them the wind patterns carved in the side of motorway ramps then take her visitors to the beach.

"Imagine that you are standing on a west coast beach with your eyes closed," she says.

"You feel the breeze through your hair and the noise of the ocean and the rustling trees behind you as the story is told of the Maori legend of the gods of the wind, sea and forests (Tawhiriatea, Tangaroa and Tane Mahuta)."

She says many international tourists will get a taste of Maori history on their visit but the trick is to show them it is alive, vibrant and still growing.

Crockett and Ranson also work with Maori teenagers, taking them into the bush to explain their culture and history.

Crockett says the focus is on new things in an old way.

"We use plastic kayaks instead of wakas.

"When you are working as a Maori business your successes and failures are felt by your iwi and hapu.

"With every business decision and every media interview that we do we are thinking of a lot more than just our business."

A lot of New Zealanders find it harder to understand the concept of modern Maori than visitors, Crockett says. "Perhaps it's more that pakeha have the wrong perception of what visitors want."

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