An 82-year-old New Zealander is visiting Rarotonga for the 63rd time after falling deeply in love with the island during an accidental visit in the 1970s.

Dave Parker’s love affair with Rarotonga and the Cook Islands began in 1974 when he discovered the island purely by chance.

Parker went on a holiday as a young man 50 years ago to Tahiti and after spending three days in French Polynesia, all he wanted to do was leave.

“Something was dragging me away of Tahiti,” he recounts.

Little did Parker know that he would end up in Rarotonga when he was trying to catch the earliest flight back to New Zealand.

“I went to the New Zealand office in Tahiti and I said ‘I’m out of here. When is the next plane?’” he tells Cook Islands News.

“They said they’ve got plane that’s going to Auckland the next day and I said I’ll go in that one.”

After everything was confirmed, Parker was told that the flight would go to Rarotonga first.

“I said I’ve never been to Rarotonga. I walked off the plane and through Customs, and I walked into an old friend who I had known through a Boys Brigade and met him through training courses in New Zealand,” shares Parker.

“He put his hand on my shoulder and he said to come stay with his family and from then, it was people like him and other people who introduced me to the island at the time and I just fell in love with it.”

Since that first trip, Parker grew fonder of Rarotonga and built connections and relationships with the locals.

He started working here after he married his former wife, who had ties to Rarotonga.

In 1985, after moving back to New Zealand, Parker returned to Rarotonga with his wife to live here.

He started a career at The Edgewater Resort and Spa when it was run by an Australian manager.

His daughter, who was born in New Zealand, was raised on the island and later, they had another child who was born and also raised here.

Having worked at the resort, Parker was able to transition his experience into marketing tourism for the Cook Islands.

This became his way of giving back to the Cook Islands by bringing groups of tourists to explore the country.

“We only stayed two years full time because the island got hit by a cyclone and with a young family with no facility, no running water, no nothing, we decided to go home but that didn’t stop me from coming here. We have strong connections here,” says Parker.

“It’s not only tourism but that of being involved with Cook Islands. I have helped the Boys Brigade in the Cook Islands through various trainings and I’ve been given thousands of dollars’ worth of instruments from various sources in New Zealand to gift to them and to keep them going.”

In his 63^rd trip, Parker brought over another group of about 20 personal friends, including some who had been to the Cook Islands before.

He shows them around the island and shares with them the Cook Islands culture.

“Mostly in the early days, there were two groups I used to bring or as many as four groups a year and so they got to know the island pretty well.

“Over the years, we have contributed an enormous amount to the tourism, I’ve brought over a hundred people as an individual operator and I’d always like to think that I have contributed benefit to the tourism with all the people that I’ve been bringing.”

Parker says the Cook Islands tourism industry plays a significant role in not only boosting the economy locally but also promoting the country’s culture to the world and sharing its hospitality and uniqueness to the world.

“Main thing is that tourism is a great industry to be involved with where we get to share about their culture and share about their country and the hospitality,” he explains.

“I think it’s important that we know that through tourism, we unite our cultures and work together but I’ve really enjoyed the industry and treat Rarotonga as my second home.”

Parker says every time he returns “home” to Rarotonga with his current wife, he stays at his old family home in Arorangi, where his love affair with the island began.

His advice to the people of the Cook Islands is to continue to uphold their culture and be proud of it and use tourism as a way of promoting and sharing the lovely hospitality to the world.