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Dear Traveler,

During the 14 years since I started Down Under Answers, travel experts to Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific Islands, I’ve often been prompted to pause and reflect on what travel really means - to the traveler, to those whom the traveler encounters abroad, and more recently, to the destination itself.

Each time one of our team members gets a letter thanking them for their contribution to a ‘perfect vacation to the South Pacific,’ ‘a dream honeymoon’ or ‘the best trip ever,’ I get an enormous sense of satisfaction knowing that the wonderful places we sell are now part of the tapestry of this person’s life. A successful trip truly is the gift that keeps on giving - to both sides. I know from my years as a bicycle touring guide in the Northwest that seeing visitors embracing the culture and marveling at the scenery is immensely gratifying.

Additionally, I get a vicarious thrill remembering great trips of my own; feeling excited that someone we’ve gotten to know over the course of carefully designing their South Pacific trip of a lifetime, now has indelible memories of their own over which to reminisce. Recently, I heard from a very experienced traveler that seeing the southern lights while on a dinner cruise in New Zealand was such unexpected beauty that she was on a high for days. That’s what travel can do for the spirit.

My first journey to Australia and New Zealand was a backpacking adventure in my twenties. Getting by on $20 a day, staying at youth hostels, eating instant noodles, and sitting on one beer all evening in an Outback pub was every bit as rewarding as staying in a 5-star hotel and dining at one of Sydney’s world-class restaurants. It’s not the style in which one travels that makes a trip, it’s the collection of never-to-be-forgotten experiences.

One thing I could never have anticipated all those years ago was that one day the Prime Minister of New Zealand, the Right Honourable Helen Clark, would shake my hand to congratulate me on Down Under Answers winning the 2005 American Chamber of Commerce in New Zealand award for Contribution to Tourism. Until that heady evening, I hadn’t stopped to think how important tourism is to the South Pacific. Helen Clark knows that a country that has a healthy tourism industry has desirable jobs to offer its workers, builds attractive infrastructure, raises the quality of restaurant food and service to an international level and offers sustainable tourism measures that will benefit the visitor as well as the resident.

From Down Under Answers and the remarkable destinations we sell, heartfelt thanks to those of you who already know us, and a warm welcome to those who soon will.

Letter from Kirk Demeter, President
Pictured with NZ Prime Minister Helen Clark