Katikati Naturist Park wins New Zealand national tourism award
Joan and Kevin Sampson, of Katikati Naturist Park in New Zealand, www.katikati-naturist-park.co.nz were very happy to learn that their park had won the holiday park category in the national tourism industry awards. The contest was open to all holiday parks in New Zealand. They were presented with the award by the Minister of Tourism, The Hon. Damien O’Connor. The Prime Minister of New Zealand was also there to present an award to the supreme award winner on the night, the Magic Bus Company. Kevin and Joan say that winning the award has achieved one of their main objectives in entering the contest - to cement naturism into the mainstream of the country’s tourism and recreational sectors.
Katikati Naturist Park entered the awards for two other reasons as well. First, because the Sampsons, having been regularly told by guests, especially those from overseas touring New Zealand, that Katikati was one of the best holiday parks, if not the best, that they had stayed at in New Zealand and compared very favourably with naturist resorts overseas. They thus wanted to see how they rated under official scrutiny against other top parks. Secondly, as a finalist/winner they would receive extensive feedback from the judges as to their strengths and weaknesses and thus learn how they could improve their operation.
Katikati Naturist Park has always been advertised in the standard holiday park guides, and since opening has been a member of Holiday Accommodation Parks of New Zealand, the national trade organisation for camping grounds. Also it has always been supported by the I-sites in Katikati, Tauranga , Mount Maunganui and elsewhere.
The awards process is a rigorous one and is much more than just having the judges visit each park and make an assessment of the park’s facilities and services. It is instead a three-stage process, beginning with entrants submitting a seven-page ‘expression of interest’ describing their business, its challenges, its special features, their key customer markets and their expectations, and finally their main business results and achievements. This year there has been a greatly increased emphasis on sustainability. This encompasses not just the physical environment, but also how a business inter-relates with the community/ies of which it is part. These expressions of interest are then assessed, and those meeting pre-set criteria are asked to submit a round two full entry.
The round two entry is a 26-page document about business leadership, strategic planning, customer and market focus, measurement analysis and knowledge, workforce focus, process management and business results. The last item covers product and service results, customer-focused results, financial and market results, workforce results and organisational effectiveness. Embedded in all of these is the issue of sustainability. These round two entries are then marked using the internationally recognised ‘Baldrige’ system for assessing business excellence. Businesses achieving a certain, unpublished, mark out of 1,000 are then declared finalists. Sometimes there may not be a finalist in a category if none of the entrants reach the required mark, and sometimes, even though there may only be one finalist, that business may not be declared a winner if, after the final stage, a site visit, it is judged that they are not up to the required standard. Katikati Naturist Park had its site visit in mid-June when the assessors spent more time discussing with Kevin and Joan issues raised in their entry than in looking at the facilities and grounds.
So it will be apparent to readers that the awards process is not an easy one. As entrants in other years have said, simply preparing an entry is of itself a valuable process for a business to go through, as it forces it to focus on its strengths and weaknesses, the main driving forces behind its achievements, and especially how it goes about meeting or exceeding customer expectations. Holiday parks, both textile and naturist, just like naturist clubs, are faced with an ever-evolving social and economic environment. It was apparent from the success of Katikati Naturist Park as a business that, if marketing is gone about in the right way, there are many people in the New Zealand community, as in other countries, who wish to participate in naturist recreation.
For those not familiar with Katikati Naturist Park, it has grounds of about 3.5 hectares in a peaceful rural area, with a river along one boundary. For guest accommodation it has camping/caravan sites, on-site caravans for hire, kitchen cabins, self-contained (motel- type) units, plus the usual ablution facilities to accompany these. For their guests’ relaxation there is a recreation room with TV, library, pool table, table-tennis and a sauna. Next to the recreation room is a swimming-pool and two spas. Other recreational facilities are a wood-fired BBQ, mini-putt golf and frisbee golf. A few kilometres from the park are the Kaimai ranges, with ample opportunities for walks in the forest.
As well as the class of its facilities, the spaciousness of the park’s grounds was one of the main factors contributing to its win. The Sampsons have founded their operation on the INF definition of naturism as ‘A way of life in harmony with nature, characterised by the practice of communal nudity, with the intention of encouraging self-respect, respect for others and for the environment.’ It is a naturist park that is proud to market itself as a family venue.