Volunteers to welcome tourists to Nelson
Retired volunteers will be paired with AI in a bid to give visitors a more personal welcome to Nelson.
A trial is set to start in March to test whether volunteers on the streets can help fill the visitor information gap left by the closure of the city’s i-Site.
The information centre at Miller’s Acre closed in 2022, after the Nelson Regional Development Agency (NRDA) reported that reduced sales and a switch to online bookings had made the business no longer viable. A pop-up then ran until Easter 2024.
Since then, there had been an “ongoing level of concern and complaint about the lack of a face-to-face service with feedback received directly from visitors and from agencies/companies dealing with them”, a report to the Nelson City Council on Thursday said.
Most information centres around the world had closed and been replaced by online services, but there was an “emerging trend for community-led tourism services to fill the gap left by the closure of central/local government staffed visitor information outlets”, the report said.
Now, NRDA and the council will trial using retired volunteers and a purpose-built AI tool to help meet the need for face-to-face visitor help.
“There is an opportunity to continue to provide an affordable, face-to-face service through a community-led approach.”
The project will cost the council about $17,000 to run until June 30, 2025, and a further $28,000 to continue it in 2025/26.
NRDA chief executive Fiona Wilson said the trial wouldn’t fully replace the i-Site, but would help add to the mix of help available to visitors.
“The old commercial model of the i-Site no longer works, but we still want to be welcoming.”
The volunteers would be kitted out with a visible garment such as a hi-vis vest and would walk the streets in pairs available to offer assistance.
They would use iPads loaded with a custom built AI tool to help answers questions and assist visitors.
The AI was built using the most frequently asked questions at the i-Site.
The added benefit was being able to engage active retired people as volunteers, she said.
“If it works the ideal outcome would actually be that we have a strong group of interested volunteers and that we have the presence and very friendly welcome in the city.”
At the council meeting on Thursday group manager strategy and communications Nicky McDonald told councillors the hope was to have volunteers out on the street by April.
The AI tool was being funded through support from the Selwyn Foundation, and meant that volunteers wouldn’t need to be anxious about remembering large amounts of information, she said.
The tool was still being developed, but the aim was to make it as up to date as possible, and potentially be able to translate for international travellers, she said.
The funding would cover the management costs of running the volunteer scheme, but was “nowhere near” the cost of the iSite operation, she said.
They already had about five interested volunteers through word of mouth, but anyone interested could contact the council’s customer service centre, she said.
By Warren Gamble, Nelson Mail
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