The report “Towards a Marketing Strategy for Māori in Tourism” was compiled through the joint efforts of Andrew Te Whaiti, Chellie Spiller, Lucy Cruickshank and John Panoho with strategy development and final report writing by Dr Peter Phillips.

The review concluded that the potential for marketing Māori tourism businesses went through a step change with two key initiatives:

1. the adoption of the “interactive traveler” as the key target market by Tourism New Zealand (TNZ); and
   

2. the inclusion of Māori values of manaakitanga and kaitiakitanga as underpinnings of the New Zealand Tourism Strategy (NZTS).
   

The review concluded, however, that unfortunately the opportunity presented by these initiatives has not been realized and Māori tourism businesses languish, making only a modest contribution to the economic, social and environmental health of Māori and Aotearoa-New Zealand.

The review identified that a central issue for Māori tourism businesses today in marketing terms is the dominance of supply-side thinking. In practice, the TNZ focus on the “interactive traveler” provides an ideal vehicle for Māori tourism operators to reach many visitors to Aotearoa-New Zealand but the supply-side focus has resulted in attempts to promote a niche product.

The report identified the irony that while Māori culture has been identified as a key differentiator for interactive tourism in Aotearoa-New Zealand, the institutions set up to promote tourism business development by Māori (the NZMTC and MRTOs) have absolutely missed the opportunity to both broaden and deepen the contribution of Māori values (of which manaakitanga and kaitiakitanga are but two) to interactive tourism in Aotearoa-New Zealand.

The review found it particularly ironic from a marketing perspective that while the terms “manaakitanga” and “kaitiakitanga” now have wide usage, Māori values do not underpin the wider development of Māori tourism businesses, let alone the wider industry. TNZ and the NZTS have recognized the significance of Māori culture as the key differentiator for tourism in Aotearoa-New Zealand and yet little or nothing has been done to support this initiative and build on it to infuse tourism for the interactive traveler with Māori values.

Building on the platform that has been established and realising the potential of the effort that has been expended on industry development in recent years will require that the approach to the involvement of Māori in tourism is reframed, and realigned to ensure that Maori-values based tourism becomes an integral part of the offer to all Interactive Travellers.

The report identified the attraction of this approach is that it complements the direction already established by Tourism New Zealand and the NZTS, and utilizes existing marketing structures and programmes. The strategic intent of this strategy is to enrich a path along which the industry is already moving to the mutual benefit of Māori and pakeha operators alike, and the industry as a whole.

The report advocated a paradigm shift for Maori tourism businesses to replace the conventional business model with one based on the Five Well-beings - spiritual, cultural, social, environmental, and economic wellbeing.

This values-based approach would put Māori (rather than the image of Māori) at the heart of industry and provide the platform for a change of positioning.

The report argued that to realise this opportunity Māori must be prepared to re-align with the tourism industry rather than seek to develop a separate Māori cultural tourism niche.  The marketing of Māori tourism businesses should be fully integrated into the "interactive traveller" focus of TNZ. It contended  that all the reasons that prompted TNZ to choose this target market apply to Māori involvement in tourism. The rationale of financial constraints, finite resources, proposition match and fit with the country’s tourism strategy are entirely consistent with the situation with which Māori tourism businesses are collectively faced.