Chocolate fern brings a sweet touch to tourism

By SIMON HENDERY and NZPA

A chocolate fern to promote New Zealand? The idea seemed so simple Lesley Immink could not believe it hadn't been done before.

Immink, a director of New Zealand Educational Tours, said her Whakatane-based company had always included a chocolate bar in letters to clients.

About 18 months ago staff were discussing having a company chocolate bar made, when a staff member suggested making chocolates in a fern shape.

"We laughingly dismissed the idea, as someone else must have thought of it - it's too obvious, no way, etc - and then started thinking seriously about its possible potential," said Immink.

She did some market research and now has four trademarks protecting the chocolate fern including the name "Ferntastic" - and a design trademark is pending.

The ferns were a big hit at last month's Trenz tourism expo in Auckland.

Company staff handed out "fortune ferns" (chocolates wrapped with an inspirational message and the company's contact details) to the more than 400 tourism companies at the show.

The response was overwhelming, with particular interest shown by the hotel and boutique lodge sector.

Immink said accommodation operators were interested in the chocolate ferns as either a pillow treat, a sweet to present with bills, or with a cup of coffee.

She chose chocolate makers, Donovans of Hamilton, to make the first batch of ferns.

She said the strong demand meant she would be talking to Donovans about producing a second run and making a range of ferns.

She said her company had five staff and also employed contract tour guides. It expected to employ another person within the next couple of months to focus on marketing and distributing the chocolates.

Interest in the chocolate fern as a tourism marketing tool follows last month's decision for the fern to be used as an official tourism industry quality mark.

Independent tourism classification and grading organisation Qualmark is now using the same stylised fern that is used in Tourism New Zealand's promotional material overseas.

Qualmark chairman and Tourism New Zealand chief executive George Hickton said the new Qualmark fern would endorse about 800 tourism businesses by the end of the year, and more than 3000 by 2005.

He said Tourism New Zealand would progressively use the Qualmark assurance as the standard for promoting tourism products and services.

He said that Qualmark had now significantly upgraded its accommodation assessment systems and was in the process of testing new accreditation systems for non-accommodation businesses such as adventure tourism operators.

He said that whether it was a luxury hotel, a budget backpackers hostel, a scenic flight or a horse trek, Qualmark would tell the traveller that the business had been independently assessed.

NZET

Qualmark