Queenstown Lakes Deputy Mayor Lyal Cocks looks for Ulsan,
Korea, on a map, before he flies out to the industrial city
today for a two-day summit on sustainable mountain tourism.
Photo by Lucy Ibbotson.
A Wanaka politician departs New Zealand this morning for
a whirlwind two-day visit to Korea to promote the Queenstown
Lakes district.
Deputy Mayor Lyal Cocks was given just a week's notice of a
22,100km round-trip to represent the district at a summit on
sustainable mountain tourism in Korean city Ulsan, after
Mayor Vanessa van Uden became unavailable to travel.
A delegation, including the deputy mayor of Ulsan, visited
Queenstown in August, and established with the district
council here a "very generic, non-committal MOU [memorandum
of understanding] to keep up the exchange of information and
promote each other", Mr Cocks said.
The Koreans had also invited the QLDC to send a
representative for a reciprocal visit to this month's summit.
Mr Cocks' trip would be paid for by the city of Ulsan. It
would not have been contemplated or possible had local
ratepayer money been involved, he said.
"Ulsan has made a very generous offer, which will enable our
council to rub shoulders with some leading mountain resorts
from China, Japan and Switzerland. I will be there to
contribute but will also take the opportunity to absorb
learnings from the likes of Hebei, Toyama and Engelberg, not
to mention Ulsan itself."
Mr Cocks will spend tomorrow and Saturday in Ulsan, before
returning to New Zealand on Sunday.
He will participate in a congress with other dignitaries,
meet the Ulsan mayor and attend a festival and exhibition.
He will give a 10-minute talk on the Queenstown Lakes
district, featuring input from Destination Queenstown and
Lake Wanaka Tourism.
Mr Cocks said Ulsan was a port city boasting one of the
biggest shipyards in the world.
"In my previous career, in the navy, we bought a navy tanker
from those yards and it's still operating."
He said while Ulsan had a relatively small population, by
Korean standards, of about 1.5 million people, but being an
industrial city it accounted for about 80% of the country's
GDP.
- lucy.ibbotson@odt.co.nz
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