Communities are the living heart of our district. By understanding and respecting everyone’s unique perspectives and values we can be more informed, make better business decisions, and ensure everyone is responsible for our regenerative future.
The below resources can support your business with becoming more accessible and inclusive for your employees and guests.
Prioritising accessibility in your business and workplace ensures all visitors regardless of ability can fully enjoy and participate in your experiences, whilst widening market appeal and enhancing destination reputation.
Become a more inclusive business with the help of these resources focused on accessibility and inclusion within tourism.
March24
Accessibility 1:1 With Businesses - Exclusive Opportunity
At your business
DQ has partnered with Making Trax Foundation to provide the opportunity for businesses to receive an in-person consultation on how they can improve accessibility in their business. 1:1 consultations are being held between 24 - 28 March, 2025.
Industry specific tips to become an accessible business
Be.Lab delivers innovative and creative social change programmes to enable citizens of all abilities to participate and thrive. Their vision is for New Zealand to become the most accessible nation in the world.
Be.Lab have a range of free resources to support businesses and communities to become fully accessible:
Making Trax Foundation is independent organisation dedicated to inclusion in Adventure, Tourism & Travel. Receive assistance from Making Trax Foundation in developing a transparent and unique access guide for your business.
An access guide serves as a digital document that offers potential customers comprehensive information about your experience, services, requirements, and infrastructure, thereby supporting accessibility and inclusivity. Explore further details here.
Inclusion
Being an inclusive business fosters a diverse and innovative workplace culture, encourages quality decision making and helps provide a better experience for your guests.
The below resources can support you with creating a more diverse and inclusive business.
External Inclusivity Resources
Diversity and inclusion toolkit and strategy support
MyNZTE have a range of information and resources to support your business in building team culture, diversifying your team, along with a Diversity and Inclusion Toolkit to support businesses in some actions you can be doing now.
Employment Hero have a guide to support businesses in building a Diversity and Inclusion strategy. The guide provides information on the basic principles of diversity and inclusion, discuss's how to cater to different needs and experiences, and how to build a strategy.
LGBTIQ+ inclusion resources from Pride Pledge
Discover effective strategies to enhance diversity through your businesses job descriptions and equitable hiring practices, outlined in the Rainbow Inclusive Recruitment Guide from Pride Pledge.
The Rainbow Measurement and Reporting Update provides actionable steps to create inclusive working environments, while also guiding you on how to measure progress through annual reporting, ensuring transparency and accountability in your diversity and inclusion efforts.
Explore Pride Pledge's diverse range of resources, including upcoming events, Rainbow-washing and how to avoid it in your business, inclusive policy guidelines, and empowering businesses to deepen their commitment to inclusivity.
It makes good business sense to employ people of all ages, to learn from others, retain valued staff, skills and knowledge. The New Zealand Government business website has information to support businesses in identifying how to communicate to different ages, develop people's skills, create great working conditions for all people, and more.
Workplace accreditations to support diversity and inclusion
The GenderTick stands as a formal accreditation initiative crafted to recognise organisations showcasing an annual commitment and leadership in gender equality. It serves as New Zealand's sole accreditation programme dedicated to gender equality.
The Rainbow Tick is an accreditation mark for organisations that complete a Diversity and Inclusion assessment process. The accreditation ensures a workplace understands and welcomes sexual and gender diversity. The process is an on-going quality improvement process.
The Living Wage accreditation offers creditability around providing an hourly rate that ensures workers get 'enough money to live with dignity'. If your business is providing the Living Wage as a minimum, you can get Living Wage Employer accredited by meeting the criteria. If your business becomes accredited, you can use the Living Wage Employer logo.
Aotearoa inclusivity matrix
The Aotearoa Inclusion Matrix by Diversity Works NZ, is an evidence-based framework that supports organisations to identify how to develop their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices. It provides a basis for workplaces to understand their current capabilities and identify areas for improvement.
Tiaki Promise
New Zealand is a special place, and everyone who lives and travels here has a responsibility to look after it. The Tiaki Promise is a commitment to care for New Zealand while travelling.
In Queenstown, that includes looking after our mountains, lakes and rivers, driving with care and to the conditions, and respecting everyone you meet, visitor or local.
Tiaki – Care for New Zealand. Our Kiwi kids' promise to future visitors.
Who is Tiaki Promise for?
Tiaki is for all travellers to embrace, both domestic and international, when they embark on a visit to Queenstown.
The national agencies that developed Tiaki have worked to make sure visitors on their way to New Zealand start to hear about Tiaki before they arrive, with Air New Zealand showing the Tiaki video to passengers on some international flights.
Locally, Queenstown Airport shows Tiaki messaging throughout the terminal, expanding the coverage of the campaign in our region.
How can Destination Queenstown Members get involved?
We encourage Destination Queenstown members to incorporate the Tiaki Promise into their business and service to guests, to ensure that visitors receive consistent information and embrace it for themselves on their journey around our beautiful place.
To start with, having the Tiaki assets printed for use in your shopfront will ensure that Tiaki is visible to visitors and locals alike.
Then you can consider other ways to use Tiaki messages in your operation, whether it's during your safety briefing, greeting customers, when they're signing health and safety documents, and gently reminding customers of the expectations of Tiaki when they leave your care.
You can also show your support for Tiaki – Care for New Zealand in the digital world by using the #tiakipromise hashtag, and encouraging your customers to declare their support too.
Tiaki Promise collateral
A range of Tiaki Promise materials are available free of charge in Tourism New Zealand's Visual Library. The resources are currently available in English, Te Reo Māori, German and Chinese, and will be available in more languages soon.
There will be development of Tiaki assets as the campaign is further embedded into the New Zealand tourism industry. If you have any ideas or needs you can contact the DQ team to discuss further.
More information about Tiaki
For more information about the Tiaki Promise, visit the official website.
Grow Tourism offer a course to help businesses gain a deeper understanding of Tiaki in action and help apply this knowledge into your specific role while empowering others to do the same.
If you want to read more about visitor behaviour and the environment, Tiaki partners completed this research to inform decisions around developing Tiaki.
Love Queenstown
Love Queenstown provides an opportunity for our industry to come together, leave a legacy we can be proud of, and inspire change the world over.
How to get involved
There are a number of ways your business or organisation can support Love Queenstown. Whether it's through a direct contribution, Sharing it with your audience, or voluntary donations at point of sale. Learn more about how your business can support Love Queenstown here.
