Mark Morrison, Wildwire Wanaka

Mark has lived in Wanaka for around 30 years and has been involved in the tourism industry since he left school.

Travelling the world as an International Mountain Guide gave Mark the opportunity to see tourism industries the world over.

After getting married and having two children, Mark built and established the Award winning activity, Wildwire, which is a massive feat of engineering and vision that is unmatched worldwide. Mark has been on the Lake Wanaka Tourism Board for five years and has served three of those years as the Chairman. Mark volunteered to step down from Chair last year, but remains as deputy Chair to maintain continuity for the organisation.

During his tenure as Chair, Lake Wanaka Tourism won many plaudits and continues to perform as one of the best RTOs in New Zealand.

“I am passionate about tourism and firmly believe that regenerative tourism is the way forward from the devastation of COVID. I believe that tourism plays an integral part in our community and we now have a real opportunity to show New Zealand what our industry can do for them. Although it is hard to see it from here, this is actually a massive opportunity!”

Trent Yeo founded Ziptrek Ecotours in Queenstown, 2009 as the first zipline tourism company in Aotearoa New Zealand. Ziptrek is a sustainability-focused business providing personalised zipline and tree-based guided tours that create place-making stories to thousands of guests.

Trent Yeo was past winner of the Emerging Tourism Leader at the New Zealand Tourism Awards and Ziptrek is currently a Qualmark 100% Pure Experience winner. In the last three years Trent has served on many groups including the Sustainability and the TSC development, Insights and Data, New Zealand Tourism Futures Taskforce Advisory, Queenstown Lakes' groups on Tourism, Destination Management, Affordable Housing, Startup Ecosystem and Wellbeing.

Trent has served in a number of governance roles and is a strong sustainability advocate. He is former licensee and curator of TEDxQueenstown, operations for TEDxScottbase and is a regular speaker and panellist on sustainability, education, tourism and entrepreneurship programmes and events.

Trent is a staunch advocate that New Zealand should and can lead the world's most sustainable tourism industry.