Lightning Lab Demo Day: The people’s choice winner

21st August 2019 By Bridget O'Connell | bridget@tourismticker.com | @tourismticker

Stay Native’s Te Ara Armstrong

Social enterprise Stay Native scooped the people’s choice award at last night’s Lightning Lab Tourism Demo Day event at Christchurch Town Hall.

The Northland-based business, which has been in development since 2017, won the crowd over with a pitch fronted by chief executive Te Ara Armstrong who has also been the family team’s mainstay on the three month Lightning Lab programme.

He has been leading the development of the online travel platform where visitors can book authentic indigenous experiences – initially here in New Zealand – with ‘hosts’ including Waka Abel Tasman, Christchurch cultural experience He Tāngata, and Kapiti Island Nature Tours.

The underlying purpose of the business, however, is to improve economic equality for indigenous peoples.

He said: “Our vision is to be the premier online destination for finding and booking cultural experiences and our mission is to simplify the process for travellers looking for cultural experiences and make it easier for Maori and other indigenous hosts to share those experiences with them.”

“That last part specifically is really important to us.”

“Maori make up around 15% of our population in NZ but account for only 0.2% of its small businesses.  Maori unemployment is nearly three times the national average.

“But most importantly many Maori are in danger of losing their connection to their land, language and culture simply because many feel that they have no option but to leave their traditional homes and communities to find employment.”

The Stay Native team, which also includes operations lead Charla Chase, community lead Pam Armstrong, and marketing lead Chanelle Armstrong will concentrate on the NZ market this summer season and next, with plans to rollout into Australia and the South Pacific pencilled in for 2021.

It was one of nine teams that took to the stage in the James Hay theatre in front of a crowd of close to 300 tourism industry supporters, advisers, operators and stakeholders to mark the end of the three-month business accelerator.

The programme, which officially comes to a close tomorrow, was supported by Callaghan Innovation, Christchurch International Airport, Centrality, Tourism Industry Aotearoa and ChristchurchNZ and was delivered by Creative HQ – a member of the Global Accelerator Network.