Cook Islands Tourism Authority

Cook Islands Tourism's Metua Vaiimene talked about how the Mana Tiaki campaign is linked to the Kia Orana Value program of Tourism. During the opening evening, the Mana Tiaki Tutorial was also an occasion to broadcast, which featured an interview with participants from the local hotel and resort companies taking part in the pilots' group.

Mana Tiaki's concept was first conceived by Luana Snowcroft, who worked as an apprentice for the Te Ipukarea Society in 2014 when she had the working name " Visa Payment System ". Ideally, reimbursement should give people the opportunity to make a contribution to the environment in the countries they are visiting.

She researched by distributing questionnaire questionnaires to a number of Rarotonga shelters. The research showed that there was a lot of encouragement from Cook Islanders to give something back to the environments they soak up. She has also been studying abroad samples of tourist reimbursement programs that have proven very well-received.

Among these were from the Lake District in the United Kingdom and the Ionian Islands in Greece. It is the first ever in the Cook Islands. At the end of 2015, Te Ipukarea Society employees Liam Kokaua and Alanna Smith began working on an update of the proposed projects with great assistance from board member Dave Furnell and of course Luana.

Mana Tiaki (authority of a janitor or guardian) was arranged and with the support of Cook Islands Tourism a powerful suggestion for delivery to Rarotonga lodging suppliers was made. The Mana Tiaki Pilots Program was launched in early April 2016 with the participation of four lodging establishments: Since July the program is open to all interested tourists.

A number of other lodging operators have been joining the four initial pilots since opening tonight, and talks are underway with other properties and resort operators to allow them to participate in the program. Mana Tiaki funds are channelled into five priority areas of the Te Ipukarea Society:

Next year, the Mana-Tiaki program is planned to connect with locations on the Outlying Islands and interested tourism companies such as rental cars, travel agencies, etc.