A tangible reminder of a great place to be

Nelson has a friend in Malaysia's Yee Yuen Yin.

I was lucky enough to meet Yee at the Asia Pacific Lotteries Conference at Auckland's Langham Hotel this week. He was there in his capacity as chief operating officer of Pan Malaysian Pools, and I, through my job as a Lotto presenter, was the MC.

There were 150 delegates from 18 countries, including China, India, Japan, Singapore, Australia and the Philippines. Being someone who can't resist blathering about how cool Nelson is, I took full advantage of my position to promote our region to the international audience. Following a speech about how New Zealand's lotteries work, I told everyone about the great job being done by the Nelson Multicultural Council, how it organises the brilliant Race Unity Day and how the council is largely funded by the New Zealand Lottery Grants Board.

In between the speakers, I threw in various random plugs for Nelson, but the biggest plug of all came when Yee took to the stage. Everyone was expecting him to start with an overview of the Malaysian lottery industry, but instead he started raving about the glories of the South Island, and Nelson in particular.

He told the delegates that while the North Island was beautiful, the South Island was even more so. Beaming, he told them that Nelson was a lovely place with great scenery, wine and art. "There is lots of good pottery there."

Yee later told me how much he had enjoyed visiting a Nelson potter's studio where he bought a dinner set for 20. He couldn't remember the name of the artist, but he really likes his dinner set. He and his wife haul it out whenever they have guests over for a meal and they always tell them where it came from.

A one-man South Island tourism campaign, Yee became a huge fan of the place while doing a commerce degree at the University of Canterbury. He told me that in Christchurch, people know him as Geoff.

I think this illustrates two things. The first is the long-term value foreign students represent to New Zealand, and the second is the importance of cultural tourism to Nelson. We may have sunshine, scenery and friendly locals, but try putting them in your suitcase and taking them home to Kuala Lumpur – it's a lot easier to pack, or post, a piece of art.

In fact, when it comes to physical reminders of a place and an experience, it's pretty hard to beat a work of art – particularly one you can eat off.

I think it would pay for us to keep this in mind following the recent folding of the Nelson Bays Arts Marketing Trust. From what I could tell, Arts Marketing, as most people called it, did a fine job of promoting Nelson as a cultural tourism destination for 16 years. I wrote a few stories for their guidebooks over that time, and last year contributed a whole swag of spiels about the place. Turns out it was to be the last book the agency produced (was it something I wrote?), which is a shame, but times change and so do the ways people communicate – a fact we were constantly reminded of at the conference whenever the words Apple and iPhone came up.

Someone who played a major role in Arts Marketing was Nelson artist Anne Rush. She wrote in one of the issues of the guidebook that the likes of cups, plates and bowls made by artists "carry part of the creator's human spirit and some of the spirit of the place they were made". I couldn't agree more, and think that buying local ceramics is a great idea. Not only does it do the regional economy and your image good, it can make life more interesting. Each morning, I love having to decide whether I'll drink my first coffee of the day from a mug made by Steve Fullmer, Owen Bartlett or Mike Perry. They are nice to look at, good to hold, and feel so much better to use than mass-produced stuff.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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