Tekapo's Earth & Sky star gazing strikes joint venture with Ngai Tahu
Friday, 9 September 2016
Tekapo stargazing tour operator Earth & Sky has signed a joint venture with Ngai Tahu Tourism.
Earth & Sky was set up in 2004 in association with the University of Canterbury to bring tours to the Mt John Observatory near Lake Tekapo.
Co-owner Graeme Murray and his business partner Hide Ozawarecently acquired land from the Mackenzie District Council but required a partner to help develop it for the tours.
'We were also missing out on Maori cultural heritage and our new partnership will change that,' Murray said.
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Murray said Earth & Sky tours had become so popular over the past five years the company now employed 60 people over winter and up to 90 during summer.
Earth & Sky expects more than 200,000 visitors over the next year on the observatory tours.
The company charges $145 for a two-and-a-half-hour tour with shorter and cheaper options available for different themes such as sunsets, the moon, as well as stargazing.
Ngai Tahu Tourism chief executive Quinton Hall said the investment in Earth & Sky was a good fit with the other visitor experiences his company operated - jet boats, helicopters, and guided walks in tourism hot spots around the country.
There are five telescopes at the Mt John observatory and four at a nearby location, Cowan's Hill.
Earth & Sky's efforts to secure 'dark sky' recognition for the Mackenzie Basin led to its 2008 nomination as a pilot scheme for the first Word Heritage Park in the Sky.
Mt John is also internationally important because of the largest Microlensing Observational Astrophysics telescope operated by University of Nagoya in conjunction with University of Canterbury.
The MOA telescope searches the 90 million or so stellar objects in the night sky in search of unusual star activity, planets and indications of worm holes.
The results are studied by other researchers around the world, Murray said.