Tourism group Wayfare has changed its name and announced a new focus on conservation.

The Wayfare group of tourism and ski companies (Real Journeys, Cardrona Alpine Resort, Treble Cone, Go Orange and the International Antarctic Centre) is now named RealNZ.

“For us, business for good is about creating enduring value through conservation, that is enabled by tourism,” CEO Stephen England-Hall said.

“Conservation has always been part of what we do but we’re committing to making it our focus.”

New Zealand’s first tourism chief conservation officer Paul Norris was recently appointed to lead a dedicated sustainability team for RealNZ.

To celebrate the new name, a ‘RealNZ for good’ day would see each of RealNZ’s employees offer up skills to assist New Zealand’s environment or community for at least one workday a year.

“Conservation work already takes place during the course of some of our team’s workdays, but this would see at least 1,000 additional days donated for conservation or community project work,” Stephen said

Stephen said the group had needed to regroup and adapt to be successful under very different market conditions.

“A period of acquisitions had led to complexity and inefficiency over the last few years, and with the market changing, left us with an unsustainable model. It also created a cluttered mix of brands and businesses, which were difficult for our visitors to find and navigate and for our teams to share their expertise and work across,” he said. 

While Cardrona Alpine Resort, Treble Cone and the International Antarctic Centre maintain their individual brands as RealNZ experiences, there would be considerable efficiencies in bringing all the tourism brands under one umbrella, he said.

Former Department of Conservation director-general Lou Sanson applauded RealNZ for being “the first tourism company that’s dedicated a position to conservation in New Zealand”.

Stephen said the change to RealNZ is largely a digital transformation and that rebranding would only be done when vessels and coaches are due for repainting.

PHOTO: Supplied