Engaging and practical public consultations have been held throughout this week to help Cook Islands Tourism develop the policies that will guide the nation positively into the future, focusing on how tourism can contribute positively to the wellbeing of the Cook Islands.

Cook Islands Tourism facilitated the discussions “Our Paradise. Our Promise/To Tatou Parataito. To Tatou Korero’motu” which focused on the four pillars of: Environment/Ao Rangi, Culture/Peu Māori, Economy/Tuanga Kimi Puapinga, and the Community/Te Au Putuputuanga Katoatoa.

Tourism’s chief executive officer, Karla Eggelton, says she’s “really encouraged” by the strong turnout and thoughtful contributions from the community over the past week.

“This high level of engagement builds on our earlier public discussions in October (2024) and reaffirms that our people recognise the broad benefits of tourism,” explains Eggelton. “However, there is now a clear need to ensure these benefits are sustained and balanced across our environment, culture, and society.”

The recent round of discussions differ from October’s sessions in that Tourism is now focusing on shaping the future of the industry, “moving beyond acknowledging its value to identifying tangible solutions”.

“We must collectively consider three key questions: What challenges do we need to address? Where do we want to go? And what actions are necessary to close the gaps?” says Eggelton.

Cook Islands Tourism’s chief executive officer, Karla Eggelton, introduces the stakeholder discussions, connecting the four stewardship pillars of: the economy, community, culture and the environment. MELINA ETCHES/25012812

“This engagement has been a crucial step in strengthening partnerships and recognising our shared responsibility because tourism is everyone’s business. The insights shared will help refine our approach to ensure tourism continues to serve the best interests of our people and islands.”

To round off this phase of work, on Monday, February 3, at 1.30pm and 6pm, the Cook Islands Tourism team will facilitate these public consultations in Aitutaki, at the Ngapuariki Hall in Arutanga.

The last session for Rarotonga will be held at 6pm on Tuesday, February 4, at the FADC Church base in town, next to Kora Pearls.

“We encourage everyone to participate,” says Eggelton. “Moving forward, there is a dedicated team focused on the delivery of our stewardship plan and we will keep communication open through surveys, newsletters, meetings, and informal discussions.”

“We look forward to ongoing collaboration as we work towards a sustainable and inclusive future for tourism in the Cook Islands.”

The discussions are part of the Destination Stewardship Plan (DSP) being driven by the project management unit (PMU) which is managed by lead consult – Dr David Ermen, and project lead – Lisa Sadaraka.

“We are using a transparent, inclusive, and practical approach to deliver the Destination Stewardship Plan by June this year,” shares Sadaraka.

Representation at the four pillar sessions was diverse allowing PMU to obtain feedback from community including residents, Pa Enua, non-government-organisations (NGOs), Heads of Ministry (HOMs) and government representatives, as well as tourism and non-tourism related business owners and employees.

“The objective was to gain feedback from participants about what they considered to be the key benefits of tourism and to identify the current challenges in the four pillars of wellbeing,” Sadaraka explains.

“They have also enabled us to identify what is currently working well, where there are gaps and what changes are needed to drive positive change through tourism.”

Key findings from these community engagements will ultimately guide the development of progress pathways that form part of the DSP.

The PMU will reconnect with communities and stakeholders in March/April to seek input on these pathways to ensure alignment with community ambitions, and to identify priority projects for implementation in the year starting July 1, 2026.

The DSP is guided by the Destination Stewardship Advisory Group (DSAG) that was mandated by Cabinet last week. DSAG is made up of Government and private sector enablers that will help ensure that forward planning can actually be implemented.

“This planning is about fostering an all-of-government approach to development through tourism – tourism as a tool to help have positive development outcomes in the Cook Islands,” says Dr Ermen.

“This is not a tourism plan that we’re writing, it’s a plan for how tourism can help to contribute to wellbeing outcomes in the Cook Islands.”

The PMU’s approach was to talk about some of the challenges already found in the work that’s already been done with the community.

“To see how tourism can positively contribute to solving these challenges, at the same time collect from you all the good things that are already happening in the community space that we should encourage, continue, promote and support in any way that we can,” Dr Ermen told the participants this week.

“Can tourism help to achieve those goals, and what action do we need to take in order to achieve to solve those goals? How can we use this opportunity to really move things forward and accelerate progress as we go through the implementation of this plan.”

Looking at managing tourism holistically, Dr Ermen says, “we need to look at the overlaps and how we can ensure that this plan brings these different well-beings together”.

Based on the October 2024 assessment where participants picked certain elements of what was important to them, cost of living, followed by loss of languages, cultural identity and traditions, adequate emergency and natural disaster planning, availability of local food, employment opportunities, and levels of migration, were some of the issues raised.

The discussions this week focused on aligning tourism with the environment, culture, economy and community, and on understanding their interactions—both positive and negative

The consultation that focused on culture drew robust viewpoints from the participants.

The overall cultural challenges up for discussion were:

• Inadequate visitor management systems at cultural sites that lead to potential overuse and damage,
• weak protections for intangible cultural heritage and intellectual property, risking misinterpretation and exploitation,
• insufficient systems to monitor and mitigate tourism’s impact on cultural assets, and
• the risk of over-commercialisation of cultural assets, detracting from authenticity.

Anthony Turua, a culture expert and former secretary of Tauranga Vananga/Ministry of Cultural Development, says another challenge that Cook Islanders are facing include residential and commercial development onto the land where a lot of our key resources for arts and crafts originate.

Anthony Turua, and Mariana Mataio attended the Cook Islands Tourism public consultation focused on tourism and culture. MELINA ETCHES/25012921

“Exposing our culture, we should encourage our practitioners at the education level so that we have the sustainability moving forward, our Pa Metua are moving on so we need to have a plan to replace our culture practitioners, arts, music and so forth,” explains Turua.

He says there is also an urgency to strengthen our intellectual property protections, including copyright and traditional knowledge, especially with the emergence of artificial intelligence. This need must be incorporated into our copyright review to safeguard our artists.

“At the moment our artists are losing out and maybe tourism could assist.”

On a positive note, Turua believes cultural experts are maintaining the quality of our arts and crafts, and performing arts.

“Our standard of performance at the Pacific Arts Festival in Hawaii last year (FestPAC), was very high and that signals that we are sustaining our level of our culture in terms of all areas like carving, arts and crafts, and Dr Teina Rongo’s Te Kōrero O Te 'Ōrau, an environmental non-governmental organisation (NGO), who are teaching traditional knowledge.

“The biggest challenge culture is facing now is globalisation and climate change, and sustaining our cultural knowledge to a younger generation.”

Mariana Mataio, a Cook Islands Māori lecturer at the USP Cook Islands and Ministry of Education advisor, says our cultural stories that are being shared in the tourism field are not consistent, and that storytellers are too lazy to check the stories they are told.

Mataio says the issues of cultural misrepresentation can be discussed and resolved.

Tongareva/Penrhyn island government executive officer Puna Vano and finance officer Teupoo Ford were both pleased to be a part of the conversations.

Tongareva/Penrhyn executive officer Puna Vano and Tongareva Island Government finance officer Teupoo Ford attended the Cook Islands Tourism second round of public consultations. MELINA ETCHES/25012924

In the past three years, Tongareva has had an increasing number of yachts visit their isolated island in the north.

In 2022, two yachts called in, in 2023 there were 17, and in 2024 – 30. On average, these yachts visit for a week, some for up to a month.

“We anticipate to have more than 40 yachts visit this year,” says Vano.

He says while there are members in their community who do not approve of the visiting yachts or tourism, most do.

“It’s just because they don’t understand the rippling effect of the economic benefits for our people,” explains Vano.

“We need to ask ourselves what are the benefits for our people? And there’re benefits which I explain to our people like an income for our fishermen who love fishing, caterers, etc.”

Vano says Tongareva has had a very positive experience with yachties so far partly because they tend to be 40 years and older.

“They are very respectful, and they follow our culture and protocols,” he says.

“We do make it clear to the yachties that they cannot bring their yachts in on a Sunday, but we do make an allowance for those who want to attend our church service, they come in on their dinghies and abide by our dress code.”

Vano says the very few stubborn yachties are the younger sailors and hippies.

“But apart from them, it’s been very positive on shore.”

Tongareva’s biosecurity officer is very active in making sure that rules are adhered to, and yachties take their own trash back to their boats.

Vano also shares that their visitors are surprised when they receive fresh tuna from the Tongareva fishermen.

“They thank us for our kind of hospitality, we are the best they say from around the world.”

Moving forward, Vano says that improving their digital services would be a very positive direction.

“We’re looking to improve and put in proper mooring spots.

“Tourism for us can be beneficial for our people, and is an opportunity to earn more.”

Assessments from October 2024 also showed that tourism contributes to: environmental degradations, is detrimental to the quality of life, increases the amount of crime, is a strain on water, and waste management.

“Tourism can divide a community,” Dr Ermen says. “What this shows is that we really need to check in with our local communities to make sure that they are happy with tourism and the type of tourism that’s being developed and the rate it is being developed – protection mechanisms that is being put in place.”

Dedicated Cook Islands Police senior sergeant, Ngatamariki Pouao, who leads Prevention/Pa Enua and Community Policing, attended all the consultations.

Attending these open discussions was “very beneficial”, since police do play an important role in society.

“Safety and security, this is an important area that needs to be considered for our community and visitors, and put at the top of the list,” says Pouao.

Senior Sargeant Ngatamariki Pouao (left), who leads the Prevention/Pa Enua and Community Policing, at the Cook Islands Tourism public consultation. MELINA ETCHES/25012928

“For us (police), we definitely need more staff, more funding and renumeration packages. To me that’s the priority for this tourism plan, after that then we can look at other things.

“This is what we are facing in the country at the moment, the safety and security of our nation. With the number of police we have today we can’t do it, if there is a disaster coming there is only one or two police officers to deal with that.”

According to Pouao, they do not have the personnel to attend to accidents, burglaries, issues with animals and stray dogs causing accidents, speeding vehicles and all issues surrounding safety.

“Out there in the Pacific we are rated one of the highest, but in our own country look at us we are treated with low wages … and the cost of living has gone up, and we have more tourists, and we can’t really do our proper job.”

Pouao says getting CCTV camera in town areas, in Muri and other problem areas would be beneficial to safety and security for the community and to help police.

“We want everyone to be safe, and security is very important.”

Jennifer Bartlett, a tourism policy specialist, attended the consultations to listen and explore ways to create policies or opportunities that will help future-proof decisions the tourism sector wants to make in collaboration with the community.

The three steps are to develop the DSP (January-June, 2025), implement priority projects (July, 2025-June, 2026), and the ongoing implementation and monitoring (July, 2026 onwards).