Amity Motel Receives a Qualmark Gold Award

In December of 2022 we had the pleasure of welcoming Qualmark to our property to examine and grade our motel. They inspected our policies and procedures, our units, our guest experience and everything in between. The information they gather is used to come up with a score to provide us with an award that reflects our motel and everything that goes on behind the scenes. Getting a Qualmark assessment is not a requirement for tourism providers, however, we choose to put ourselves through the process so we can continue to learn and adapt as the world around us changes. We want to be able to show our guests what we are doing well, and we want to discover and work on areas where we are still growing. At Amity Motel, our focus is always on providing a quality guest experience in a sustainable and profitable way. 

The Sustainable Tourism Business Award is assessed over four main categories, which are economic, environment & culture, social/people and, health & safety. Each of these categories is then broken down into subcategories. A score is provided to each subcategory to provide an overall rating for that specific category. We had to provide evidence of our operations manuals, standard operating procedures, marketing plans, business planning, proof of our waste coming in and out of the business, staff and customer engagement, how we host other cultures, how we embrace Manaakitanga, staff training, customer feedback processes, community engagement, reporting and recording for health & safety, staff wellness and our investigating and improving processes, just to name a few! It was a huge undertaking that required all our manuals to be up to date, relevant, and shown to be living and working documents that are constantly evolving.

At the time of our assessment, our reviewer stayed overnight at Amity Motel and was able to have the full guest experience. This provided her with an accurate representation of what it is like to be a guest at Amity Motel and helped her to accurately assess us from a guests perspective. This also meant that she had hours on her hands to actively scrutinise everything within her room, so if something was wrong or out of place, she was definitely going to be able to find it! She then spent the day touring the property and discussing with our management team the ins and outs of Amity Motel. She delved into all of our manuals, she scoured our policies and procedures, and she inspected every nook and cranny she could find. It was a fun day of showing off all the wonderful things we have been working on since our last assessment.

In February 2023 we were very honoured to receive the rating of Qualmark Gold Sustainable Tourism Business Award, making us one of only three tourism providers in Taranaki to hold the Gold award. Qualmarks description of a Gold Sustainable Tourism Business Award is as follows, “A gold award recognises the best sustainable tourism businesses in New Zealand, with the delivery of exceptional customer experiences an integral part of everything they do. A Gold Sustainable Tourism Award identifies those businesses leading the way in making the New Zealand tourism industry a world class sustainable visitor destination.” We were also very proud of the personal feedback we received from our reviewer that stated our property “is in a great location, close to the region's many attractions and a great base for your weekday corporate clients, you have an excellent understanding of Health & Safety requirements. Congratulations on retaining your 4 Star Motel rating and a Gold Sustainable Tourism Business Award. The property is looking in excellent condition, following a lot of ongoing investment in renovations, upgrades and your strong maintenance plan” 

We are so proud to receive and display this prestigious Qualmark award and to be considered a leading tourism business in New Zealand. We invest so much time and energy into continuous investigations, planning, and actioning, so it is very rewarding and humbling to be acknowledged and recognised for our efforts. We were blown away by the positive feedback and high rating we received and our evaluation report is a document that brings us a lot of pride and satisfaction. 

We are always aware that we are far from a perfect business and that there is always room for improvement and growth in every aspect. As part of our assessment, we were also provided with some constructive feedback and food for thought to keep us striving for the best. This has already sparked some conversations among the team and we are coming up with more new and exciting elements that we can bring to Amity Motel to enhance our guest experience, so watch this space and see what changes are coming to Amity.

Without our guests, our motel is simply a building, so we must thank all of the amazing people who have come to stay with us, and to those who have inspired us to make improvements around the property with your helpful suggestions. These are the small but important elements of a motel that you only discover when staying in the units. However, it is these small details that add comfort and convenience to improve the guest experience. By providing us with this valuable feedback we are able to ensure that the next guest has a positive experience at Amity Motel too. These are the things that set us apart and have helped us to continually improve our product to the standard it is at now, which has enabled us to be rewarded with such an outstanding achievement. We won't stop here though, our minds are already racing with how to improve and after such a positive review from Qualmark we are more inspired and enthusiastic as ever to keep striving for excellence.