Kauri Coast TOP 10 Holiday Park

Star of sustainability: Award-winning holiday park supported by Seekom

Manager: Tracy Holster

Nestled between the ancient Waipoua Forest and stunning Kai Iwi Lakes in Northland, Kauri Coast TOP 10 Holiday Park highlights how nurturing nature is a winning way to keep generations of families coming back year after year. 

Manager Tracy Holster says winning the Sustainability Excellence Award at the 2025 TOP 10 Holiday Parks Awards in September reflects the guardianship her team show for the local environment and its people.

“It's a really special place. We're in a stunning location with beautiful native trees, birds and eels on site, and glowworms right on our doorstep – we’re incredibly proud to be recognised for our sustainability practices.”

Tracy describes Kauri Coast as a ‘destination park’ – a place New Zealanders return to year after year and where international guests come to experience the beauty of Northland

“Some people have kept coming back for over a decade, with visits spanning across generations.”

Tracy says she discovered Seekom’s property management software six years ago and hasn’t looked back. The park now uses it for everything from booking and housekeeping management to reporting and guest communications.

“It's good, I wouldn't change from Seekom. There's great support available and I like the simplicity of it.
I can log in on my phone and use it when I'm not on site as well. I just find it easy to use.”

The TOP 10 Holiday Parks Sustainability Excellence Award considers sustainability, culture and heritage, and community engagement, and Kauri Coast TOP 10 scored highly on its way to securing the win.

Tracy says one of the park's most fun sustainability initiative is a boat race held at Easter and New Year’s Eve. Guests build boats from recyclable materials and race them down a river that runs through the park. 

The event has been running for more than five years and has become a highlight of guests’ stays, with hundreds of people lining the riverbanks to cheer the recycled boats on. After a winner crosses the line, the boats are all caught by a net and recycled. 

“It helps spread the message that many materials we think are trash can be re-used,” Tracy says.

Cultural connection is integrated throughout the park's operations. Tracy says all staff are trained in the values promoted by New Zealand tourism industry’s Tiaki Promise, and well versed in the park’s environmental and sustainability policies. That ensures the parks aims and objectives are embraced by the whole team. 

Story boards share the history of local flora and fauna, while self-guided Kiwi-spotting tours are available a short drive away, and QR codes with authentic kiwi and morepork calls help guests engage with wildlife, and information about kauri die back is displayed throughout the park. Tāne Mahuta, the largest known kauri tree in Aotearoa, towers over the nearby Waipoua Forest, welcoming visitors to experience its majestic presence.

Tracy says the park hires local staff to support the community and draw on their cultural knowledge and connection to the land, enriching the guest experience with authentic, culturally rooted insights.

Underpinning the park’s success are TOP 10 Holiday Parks’ values of respect, integrity, team loyalty and excellence, intertwined with its support of the Tiaki Promise, which encourages visitors and operators to respect the environment, community and cultural heritage of Aotearoa and to travel with an open heart and open mind.

As the holiday park heads towards another busy summer season, Tracy says her team won’t be resting on their laurels.

“We'll definitely keep focusing on sustainability and exploring new ways of doing things. Even small actions can have a big impact.”

With Seekom software under the hood and a trophy cabinet now sporting a brand-new award, Kauri Coast TOP 10 Holiday Park is living proof that sustainability, efficiency and guest satisfaction can all exist in harmony. All it takes are the right systems and a desire to care for your little patch of the world, leaving it a better place for all who come after you.

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The future tech set to transform guest experiences

The accommodation industry has been experiencing a technological revolution that is reshaping what guests expect when they walk through your doors. 

With many of today's travellers already arriving with smartphones that control their homes, cars that park themselves and anticipations of seamless digital experiences, it’s no surprise accommodation businesses are already making changes to meet rising expectations. 

Here's a glimpse into some of the most eye-opening technologies emerging in the accommodation industry around the world – plus a peek at how technology might change the guest experience in decades to come.

The future tech set to transform guest experiences

Virtual Tours

Virtual tours offer potential guests a digital walkthrough of rooms, facilities and experiences before they book – a great example of ‘try before you buy’. If a picture paints a thousand words, then an immersive virtual tour is even more valuable, allowing guests to explore every corner of your property from anywhere in the world. 

Marriott Hotels uses interactive virtual tour experiences to showcase their suites on its hotel websites while Shangri-La Hotels goes one further and offers virtual tours that can be viewed with Oculus-supported virtual reality headsets.

Smart set-up and interactions

Imagine what a great first impression it would make if a guest opened the front door to your property to be greeted by the sounds of their favourite album wafting through the air.

A new generation of IoT-enabled systems (Internet of Things) are helping hosts to prepare properties for their guests’ arrivals by automatically adjusting lighting, temperature and other room settings based on scheduled check-in time and preferences.

Hilton Hotel’s Hilton Honors app allows guests to control room settings from their personal device, while Wynn Las Vegas has Amazon Echo devices in all 4,748 rooms to support voice-controlled lights, curtains and news updates – Alexa has effortlessly morphed into the perfect digital butler.

Multi-sensory personalisation makes guests feel like your property was set up specially for them. This technology can also use occupancy sensors and smart controls to optimise energy usage, while ensuring perfect comfort levels the moment your guest enters your property.

Robotic room service

Autonomous robots are starting to revolutionise room service and catch the eye of accommodation futurists by operating around the clock to deliver food, towels and other requests directly to rooms – without breaks. These mechanical porters use sensors, cameras, and access to Wi-Fi to navigate lifts and corridors, with some accepting tips in the form of tweets.  

International hotel chain Aloft has bolstered its workforce with a robotic butler dubbed ‘Botlr’, adept at delivering items such as snacks, newspapers and fresh towels to guest rooms 24 hours a day, as well as filling in on the front desk when human staff numbers are low. Guest feedback on Botlr’s performance is welcomed via X (formerly Twitter) using the hashtag #MeetBotlr. 

Japan’s Henn-na Hotel in Nagasaki became the first hotel to have robot staff, partnered with a few humans to keep them under control, featuring human and dinosaur robots at the front desk to greet guests.

Housekeeping robots

Robots aren’t just grabbing attention for their impressive feats of room service. Advanced robotic cleaners can vacuum, clean sinks, showers and scrub floors, and perform complex tasks like restocking amenities and refreshing rooms. China's Zerith H1 humanoid cleaning robot is purpose built for commercial cleaning to cater for the accommodation sector.

While the Zerith H1 is not widely used yet, simpler options like the Whiz robot vacuum cleaner are saving time and money for hotels like New York’s Garden City Hotel – where the time spent for one to vacuum all the hotel’s floors saves one whole shift for a human employee.

Facial recognition

Biometric technology is now being used by some accommodation providers to allow guests to register their facial features via an app during booking and use them as a room key and payment method throughout their stay. It verifies guest identity to grant access to rooms, speeds up traditional check-in procedures and allows front desk staff to recognise guests more easily and address them by name – making guests feel more valued. 

Various methods of biometric recognition are available, but facial recognition is often preferred by hotel chains as it is reliable, quick and one of the least intrusive options. The futuristic four-star FlyZoo hotel in Hangzhou, China is one of many throughout the world that uses facial-recognition technology to streamline the customer experience it offers and increase security. 

Another benefit of facial recognition is its accuracy, allowing accommodation providers who use it to significantly reduce the amount of fraud caused by identity theft.

What else might the future hold?

Holographic concierges: Move over Jetsons! Imagine 3D holographic assistants that appear at reception or in guest rooms to provide personalised recommendations and real-time assistance. We’ve already seen hologram celebrity concerts, so is it really so far fetched to think this might make its way to the accommodation industry in future?

Emotion-reading AI systems: If embedded in robots, AI technology could analyse guests’ facial expressions and voice patterns to detect satisfaction levels. This could give accommodation providers the ability to automatically adjusting communication tactics based on how individual guests are feeling, or alert staff when intervention is needed to avoid a complaint being made.

Smart-glass integration: Modern ‘smart glass’ can change from transparent to opaque or transform into a digital display screen in response to electrical or thermal signals. In accommodation, we might one day see entire walls that transform into interactive displays, allowing guests to control everything from room ambiance to placing orders simply by touching the surface.

How to make technology work for you

The most successful technology shares three characteristics: it solves a real operational challenge; it enhances rather than complicates the guest experience, and it frees your team to focus on what humans do best – creating memorable moments.

Your guests are already living in the future, perhaps it’s time to explore how you can catch up.

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Phone (NZ) : +64 4 974 9588
Phone (UK) : +44 20 3835 5939
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 Copyright 2025 © Seekom Limited (NZ owned)