Sharing a love for rugby and the great outdoors

Mount Maunganui’s Dan Meade is sharing his love of rugby and the outdoors with international visitors keen to see what New Zealand has to offer. Photo: Bruce Barnard.

Dan Meade and Hemi Coates are typical Kiwi blokes with a love of rugby and the great outdoors.

For most, the passion would end there, but the former high school teachers have taken it a step further and started their own business taking international visitors on outdoor/rugby adventures.

Dan, of Mount Maunganui, and Hemi, of Whakatane, were working as outdoor education teachers at Hamilton Boys' High School in 2013 when a German exchange student gave them an idea.

'He came along to our curriculum evening and said he wanted to do outdoor education,” says Dan. 'When I asked him what experience he had in the outdoors he said ‘none. I grew up in a city surrounded by tall concrete buildings. This is why I've come to New Zealand'.

'We let him in and he got so much out of it. Physically he developed new skills, but he grew so much as a person. That was pretty special, so we decided to do it for other kids.”

The pair set up a website and expected the business to come flooding in.

'It didn't quite work like that,” he grins. 'We were pretty naive.” They started with weekend trips to the snow for international students studying in New Zealand, and in 2015 decided to take it a step further.

'At the time I was teaching, head of department, second in charge of the hostel, had four kids, was coaching rowing and trying to start a business. Sleep was a bit of an afterthought!” says Dan.

Manaaki offers two kinds of tours – one stream targeting international student groups and another targeting rugby teams looking for a New Zealand rugby experience.

'We offer outdoor education, service and cultural tours for international schools and try to tie those in with the International Baccalaureate curriculum,” says Dan.

'We tie in Maori cultural experiences such as visiting a marae. Students are welcomed onto Hemi's marae in Te Teko with a powhiri and they play Maori games.”

The rugby tours are starting to take shape with recent tours from an American rugby team and a Japanese women's sevens rugby team.

'In that space we're trying to tap into semi-professional teams around the world and link them with some of the best rugby brains in New Zealand. We find them good opposition and give them a good Kiwi team-building experience.

'We then stay in touch through a game analysis platform. We video all their training and their games so they can go back and work on the drills and the things we've discussed.”

Manaaki Rugby Tours has developed a new partnership with the Crusaders' high-performance unit to take their rugby tours through their facility.

'They get to tap into the best Super Rugby team in the history of the competition, so that's exciting, even though I'm a Chiefs boy at heart!” says Dan.

Dan and Hemi recently attended TRENZ, the New Zealand tourism industry's international trade show where overseas buyers meet with leading tourism operators to sell to consumers in their home markets.

'It's not what you know, but who you know. It's our challenge at the moment to attend events like this to create relationships and gain trust so people are aware of what we do and know we offer a quality experience.

'It's still a grind, but we're working hard to bring it to a level where we can deem it successful.”

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