Your stories

Telling the stories of the culture and/or history of your place is a great way to create an authentic, memorable experience for visitors. Here are some ideas of how to find and tell your stories.

Find the stories

Your local museum, historical society or library is a great place to start. They'll know many stories about the area and will be able to point you to resources to help you find out more.

Make them relevant to you

Once you've found out the stories about your place, the next step is to figure out which ones are relevant to your business. This will depend on the type of tourism business you operate. If you're taking people out onto land, you will also need to have a relationship with the tangata whenua, or people of the land, and work together on what stories are appropriate.

Work out how to tell them

You may be able to engage or even partner with your museum/historical society and/or tangata whenua to work on this. How you tell your stories will depend on many things. Some idea of how to tell stories include:

Explore how you can tell stories in interpretive signage around your premises or in your vehicles.
Include stories on your website. Then link to them from your social media or other communications channels.
Include your stories (or a link to them) in your confirmation emails.
If you have guides or staff engaging with visitors, educate them about your stories and how to tell them.
If your product includes an educational experience, explore how you can include your stories in this.

Helpful Resources

Historical Societies

The New Zealand Federation of Historical Societies has a directory of historical societies from all around New Zealand, as well as other useful links.

NZ Story

The New Zealand Stories website contains lots of useful resources around storytelling - including what to do, what to show and what to say.

What's the Story

What's the Story is a New Zealand-based company which specialises in interpretation solutions to bring your local heritage to life.