We’re incredibly proud to share that Auckland Sea Kayaks has been named a finalist in two categories at the 2026 New Zealand Tourism Awards.
Auckland Sea Kayaks is a finalist for the Tourism Industry New Zealand Trust Tourism Excellence Award – Micro Business, while our General Manager, Ocean Mead, has been named a finalist for the Tourism Industry Aotearoa Emerging Tourism Leader Award.
The New Zealand Tourism Awards celebrate excellence, innovation and leadership across Aotearoa’s tourism industry, with a record 177 entries received in 2026.
Tourism Excellence – Micro Business
Our Tourism Excellence finalist placing recognises the work that has gone into building Auckland Sea Kayaks into a high-performing tourism business while staying firmly focused on our people, our visitors and the environment in which we operate.
Over the past few years we’ve invested heavily in measuring what matters — from staff retention, safety and training to visitor experience, business growth and environmental performance. We’ve diversified our experiences, grown our education programmes, reduced our operational carbon emissions and established our Coastal Conservation Fund to directly support conservation in the Hauraki Gulf.
The judges highlighted the evidence and metrics behind our environmental and industry performance, staff training and business dashboard, noting that for a microbusiness to be operating at this scale was “extraordinary”.
Emerging Tourism Leader – Ocean Mead
Ocean’s finalist placing recognises her leadership both within Auckland Sea Kayaks and across the wider tourism industry.
Since joining the business, Ocean has helped drive new product development and business growth while championing regenerative tourism, conservation, industry collaboration and opportunities for the next generation of tourism professionals.
This has included developing Auckland Sea Kayaks’ Coastal Conservation Fund, creating a way for visitors and the business to contribute directly to conservation in the Hauraki Gulf, as well as working with final-year AUT tourism students on their capstone project, which challenges students to apply their learning to real-world global tourism challenges.
Through this partnership, students are working alongside Auckland Sea Kayaks to explore how tourism businesses can better measure, communicate and grow their conservation impact — bringing fresh thinking into the business while giving emerging tourism professionals the opportunity to work on genuine industry challenges.
The judges also recognised Ocean’s contribution to the tourism industry beyond Auckland Sea Kayaks and her leadership in regenerative tourism.
To be recognised in both a business and individual leadership category is something we’re hugely proud of — and a reflection of the work of our entire team and the many partners, schools, communities and visitors who support what we do.
Winners will be announced at the New Zealand Tourism Awards Dinner in Christchurch on 4 November 2026.
Until then, we’re pretty stoked just to be among such an impressive group of tourism operators and leaders from across Aotearoa.
