Sonya Bateson: No tourist attractions a missed opportunity

Visitors and locals alike love our beautiful Mauao. Photo/file

Tourists are spending more money in the Bay than ever before, yet business leaders say we're missing out on prime opportunities.

We in the Bay certainly live in paradise but I think these business leaders are right in saying we're missing out.

Tourism Bay of Plenty's 2015/2016 Annual Report said the Bay of Plenty regional tourism organisation area received 1,086,339 domestic and 327,516 international visitors in this 12-month period.

That's just over 1.4 million visitors to the Bay in one year, almost the population of Auckland.

Yet there's not a whole lot here for them to do.

Most of our local tourist attractions are in the wider Bay of Plenty rather than in Tauranga itself, like White Island or Comvita.

We tend to rest on our laurels knowing we live in a gorgeous place and we love to show it off, but with 1.4 million people coming here, we need to find a way to better monetise this to the benefit of our local workers and employers.

Many of the one million domestic visitors will be staying with family and friends and might spend a bit of cash at a cafe or restaurant, but not much else.

Our most popular tourist hot spots, Mauao and the beach, are both free.

We have no international hotel, possibly because there aren't many nearby tourist attractions, which means we don't get big-spending tour groups stopping by.

There have been many ideas floated around for tourist attractions, like the campaign to bring back Leisure Island and another to have gondolas to and from the summit of Mauao.

Both ideas have solid reasons why they haven't been taken on board, but it does show there are innovative ideas out there - we just need to find one that works.