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We're closed for the foreseeable future.
Our mission is to align passionate, local guides with conscious travellers to better experience the natural world and conservation. The unprecedented restrictions to accessing this audience for two years has prevented any meaningful progress. The closure of Bushman Tours will end the brand and the offering, but not the mission.
Wrapping up our tours
Due to the unprecedented challenges that the pandemic, closed borders, and a difficult economic landscape has provided, Bushman Tours has closed up its offering for the foreseeable future.
All available tours and operations have stopped and our small team are moving onto new adventures and concepts. Despite our vast mission and offering, BT remained a group of four passionate entrepreneurs. The bombardment of restrictions and uncertainty (arguably unique to New Zealand and Australia) made running this small tourism business near impossible.
We encourage all guides and adventurers alike to continue to venture outdoors and look after our precious Aotearoa New Zealand while our visitors begin to return.
"The bad luck and unique challenges started the day before New Zealand went into total lockdown.
Releasing our brand new website a day before, it was a sign of what was to come. I’ve travelled the country since and seen many “closed for good” signs. One that hit me hard was a globally recognised, highly established mountaineering agency (they even have a movie about them). Seeing their office empty of equipment and people proved our serious this was.
The truth is, battling with government restrictions and border closures was never the plan. It heavily impacted our mission to fight for conservation and meaningful adventures. After summiting the mountain of our first ever booked tour, I looked down at the Wānaka township knowing I was about to make the hardest decision I’ve ever made.
However, that same trip provided the space to brainstorm and map out a new offering I am personally very connected to. The concept has big backing and while it will approach a different audience, it will continue to contribute to local experiences, community and the outdoors; something I am very passionate about.
Thank you to all our Bushmen and Women. You are truly inspiring, wonderful people. To our followers and Visitors: keep passionately sharing the love for travel and climate. Drop one coffee or beer a week and give it to conservation. You can do this!"
Our next adventure
We’re taking our full infrastructure, website, brand and team into a new concept that is based on the world's fastest growing sport. Based primarily in the outdoors, it is community focused and still young in its popularity. We're building the platform dedicated to run the entirety of this sport, connect with others and help grow the adoption of it on a global scale.
FAQs
Here are some more details on the most common messages and emails we get.
You are welcome to reach out to the individual via means that the person publicly provides (like their social media). We cannot provide any personal information.
As the business is closing, so too will the opportunity to reach us. You can still reach us via social media.
We will be keeping this active as it's likely the account will merge into the new concept we're working on. There is also some valuable information on there about conservation, inspiring people and places to explore.
In reality, it's too little, too late. We've been slowly closing for 6 months now. The borders are open, but like many other experts in the industry continue to report, tourism is still in trouble. We did not see a viable reason to continue to sink investment into an industry ignored by the government.
All our current donations will be transferred over to our sister company, FIXINC. Our Directors will continue to volunteer and our new business venture will fight towards conversation awareness.
Potentially in some form, yes. The concept of what we did was not necessarily new, but it heavily relied on people - which we've not seen much of over covid. We loved the time we had and what we did, so who knows what the future will bring.
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