Living the good life: Can tourism help save a host community from itself?

Much has been made about how travel & tour­ism exploits host com­munit­ies. But can our industry pro­act­ively improve loc­als’ health and well-being? Ani Thompson thinks so. In this “Good Tour­ism” Insight, the hoteli­er shares how she has lever­aged the resources avail­able to her to help tackle the scourge of non­com­mu­nic­able dis­eases in her nat­ive Cook Islands. 

[Thanks to Regina Scheyvens for invit­ing Ms Thompson to write a “GT” Insight.]

In the Cook Islands, days end well when you share lots of food with fam­ily and friends. Hav­ing grown up a Poly­ne­sian in these beau­ti­ful islands I am of a cul­ture that rewards a great amount of work with a great amount of food. Of course there is noth­ing wrong with this men­tal­ity in mod­er­a­tion. How­ever, the harsh real­ity is that we have been liv­ing an unbal­anced life­style for too long. We are used to hav­ing our cake and eat­ing it too.

This is why non­com­mu­nic­able dis­eases (NCDs) are pre­val­ent in the Cook Islands among both adult and youth pop­u­la­tions. A sur­vey report by The Cook Islands’ STEP­wise Approach to Chron­ic Dis­ease Risk Factor Sur­veil­lance (2004) found that the adult pop­u­la­tion aged 25 – 64 years had an obesity rate of 61.4%, with hyper­ten­sion (33.2%), dia­betes (23.6%), and elev­ated blood cho­les­ter­ol (75.2%) also pre­val­ent. More recently, The Pacific Sci­ence for Health Lit­er­acy Pro­ject iden­ti­fied rising overweight/obesity rates (cur­rently 91%/72%) among Cook Islands’ adults. These trends are being observed in young­er age groups also, with the Glob­al School Health Sur­vey report­ing rates of 63.7%/35.5% overweight/obesity in stu­dents aged 13 – 17.

Also see Erdogan Koc’s “GT” Insight
“Do all-inclus­ive hol­i­days pro­mote glut­tony, obesity?”

These stat­ist­ics are shock­ing. They are the worst among the PICTS (Pacific Island Coun­tries and Ter­rit­or­ies). It is no won­der then that the life­style of the Cook Islands, includ­ing the wide­spread con­sump­tion of junk food and a lack of phys­ic­al exer­cise, is a con­trib­ut­or to the pre­val­ence of NCDs with­in the country.

We know this. Yet we have all been ‘too busy’ to address this issue with­in our work­places, our com­munit­ies, and our families. 

No big deal … until it is

A little over 100 staff work at Pacific Resort Raro­tonga and 30% of them would be suf­fer­ing some sort of NCD, or a mem­ber of their fam­ily would. Before COVID I had staff mem­bers call­ing in sick often due to gout, high blood pres­sure, or oth­er NCD-related ail­ment. This is so com­mon in our islands it is widely accep­ted as nor­mal; no big deal … until it becomes a big deal when, for example, someone had an open wound that won’t heal. 

As an employ­er, is it really my place to tell my staff how to live? Or does it start to sound like nag­ging? I have for many years encour­aged my staff to come with me, in my car if needed, to early morn­ing fit­ness group ses­sions in the resort grounds with staff and guests togeth­er. It is fun but can be a bit of a dis­trac­tion when there are oth­er oper­a­tion­al pri­or­it­ies. But I couldn’t always drive to their houses every oth­er morn­ing at 5:30 am. And they did­n’t always want to be taken away from their fam­il­ies so early. I knew it wasn’t a sus­tain­able way to encour­age bet­ter life­styles among my staff, but for years it was bet­ter than nothing.

In crisis, opportunity

Then COVID-19 arrived and everything came to sud­den stand­still for the first time in his­tory. In all my 38 years in the Cook Islands I had nev­er seen my coun­try or our resorts so quiet. It was eer­ie. And no-one could have pre­dicted the length of time COVID has kept our coun­try closed off to the world. 

The first few months were rel­at­ively easy, but the situ­ation star­ted to affect the men­tal health of many of my staff. To keep them busy both phys­ic­ally and men­tally, we ran courses incor­por­at­ing cross train­ing with skills train­ing for as many staff as pos­sible. This was great for their CVs but it wasn’t address­ing the real issues in our com­munity, which were that regard­less of fur­ther upskilling or qual­i­fic­a­tions, once you are sick or tend­ing to an ill­ness this could put you back out of work for days or even weeks on end.

Before the pan­dem­ic I was aware of neg­lected places nearby, and of oppor­tun­it­ies missed, because of how busy we have all been. I soon real­ised that as the region­al gen­er­al man­ager of one of the largest employ­ers in the Cook Islands, Pacific Resort Hotel Group, I had a real oppor­tun­ity to make a big dif­fer­ence; an oppor­tun­ity to pos­it­ively influ­ence not only our work­place but also its many exten­ded fam­il­ies. I real­ised that through com­munity-based out­reach pro­grams, we could keep ourselves busy, keep our minds act­ive, add value to our com­munit­ies, and do as much as we could to enhance our envir­on­ment for not only ourselves but also for our guests when they return.

Also see John Mor­ris Wil­li­ams’ “GT” Insight
“How to make a hotel green & respons­ible: Get on with it!”

Some of the activ­it­ies we rolled out included plant­ing new hedges for the homes near our resorts and renov­at­ing com­munity spaces, includ­ing cre­at­ing a make­shift COVID clin­ic. By using the skills with­in my team — our elec­tri­cians, car­penters, plumb­ers, paint­ers, and house­keep­ers; some 40 people in total — we were able to com­pletely trans­form a near derel­ict com­munity meet­ing hall into a clean and safe envir­on­ment for all to enjoy.

The sil­ver lin­ing on the COVID cloud has been the oppor­tun­ity it has giv­en us. And I am blessed to have the resources of Pacific Resort Hotel Group to help add value to small areas of our island; value that I hope will endure bey­ond these unpre­ced­en­ted times. 

Healthy body, healthy mind

At writ­ing our ren­ov­ated com­munity hall is now the ven­ue for sev­en dif­fer­ent group activ­it­ies per week. Many of these activ­it­ies encour­age phys­ic­al exer­cise and healthy life­styles. All my staff attend the major­ity of these activ­it­ies of their own free will.

The hall and its sched­ule of activ­it­ies pos­it­ively influ­ences the wider com­munity because crowds attract crowds. Over the past four months activ­it­ies have attrac­ted on aver­age more than 200 reg­u­lars (double our staff num­bers) who often bring along their chil­dren, part­ners, sib­lings, et cet­era, for an hour a day of exer­cise. This is still a very small num­ber in com­par­is­on to Raro­tonga’s pop­u­la­tion, how­ever new ideas on how to fight NCDs keep spring­ing from our humble com­munity activity.

From the per­spect­ive of the fam­il­ies of our team mem­bers, it mat­ters to know that when our loved one goes to work that they are enjoy­ing their time there; that they are not feel­ing uncom­fort­able, sore, stressed, or that their ill­nesses aren’t get­ting the bet­ter of them. 

Our ini­ti­at­ive and the exper­i­ences that have fol­lowed have been a win/win/win. Our people, busi­ness, and com­munity are all health­i­er and more pro­duct­ive as a dir­ect res­ult of us caring more. Recog­nising that we can make a dif­fer­ence has meant that we have gone the extra mile, had fun, and helped tackle the silent killer of NCDs.

Happy people, happy place

When bor­ders reopen, the next step in our jour­ney will be includ­ing our inter­na­tion­al guests in our com­munity activ­it­ies; offer­ing them an oppor­tun­ity to engage with our team mem­bers on their lunch breaks and in their spare time; as indi­vidu­als rather than ser­vice providers.

You might note that as a hoteli­er I am not in the busi­ness of health or fit­ness. And you might ask: “Why do this?” My answer: Because we are not only in the place busi­ness but also the people busi­ness. A des­tin­a­tion is both. Who wouldn’t be attrac­ted to a coun­try, a com­munity, or an organ­isa­tion with a vibrant zesty soul? 

As travel & tour­ism pro­fes­sion­als we need to remem­ber and be mind­ful that there is a loc­al com­munity around us that is inter­twined and inter­con­nec­ted with us one way or the oth­er. Com­munity is integ­ral to our des­tin­a­tion. So not only should we give back to com­munity, we should be community.

Who­ever said you can’t have your cake and eat it too?

What do you think? Share a short anec­dote or com­ment below. Or write a deep­er “GT” Insight. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog wel­comes diversity of opin­ion and per­spect­ive about travel & tour­ism because travel & tour­ism is everyone’s business.

Fea­tured image (top of post): Bare­foot Bar: Liv­ing the good life in the Cook Islands. Image sup­plied by Ani Thompson.

About the author

Born and raised in the Cook Islands, Ani Thompson is the region­al man­ager for the Pacific Resort Hotel Group, “the Cook Islands’ lead­ing lux­ury resort group”. Hav­ing accu­mu­lated vari­ous voca­tion­al cer­ti­fic­ates in lead­er­ship, hos­pit­al­ity, and adult learn­ing, among oth­er use­ful skill sets and know­ledge areas, Ms Thompson is cur­rently com­plet­ing her Mas­ter Cer­ti­fic­ate in Hos­pit­al­ity Man­age­ment with Cor­nell Uni­ver­sity as well as a dip­loma in Busi­ness Lead­er­ship with the Cook Islands Ter­tiary Train­ing Insti­tute (CITTI).

Ani’s pas­sions out­side of work include sup­port­ing a vari­ety of fit­ness groups and pro­jects all over the Cook Islands. And she has been known to spin tunes at loc­al fest­ivals and clubs as one of Raro­tonga’s few DJs for EDM (elec­tron­ic dance music).