I've read Malcolm Gladwell's book, The Tipping Point, and in the past few weeks I've been able to see exactly what he means when I think of the development of Petone's tourist accommodation sector. At the risk of over simplifying the research of Malcolm Gladwell, the tipping point for a product is when something triggers a sudden and dramatic increase in interest and sales of the product. Absolutely recommend getting yourself a copy; a great read!
Anyway, the tipping point in Petone appears to have been reached in terms of tourist accommodation development.
Petone is the number one visitor attraction in the Hutt Valley, Wellington. Jackson Street is the main retail, cafe, restaurant and gallery strip drawing thousands of people to its unique mile. The Petone Settlers Museum on the waterfront tells the wonderful stories that make Petone and Wellington what it is today, and a walk along the waterfront with its long finger of wharf pointing at Wellington across the harbour is a must do. Serving as bookends to the east and west of Petone are commercial zones which provide much of the employment and are a magnet for many business visitors.
Accommodation for this visitor draw card has been limited to a series of motels along the Petone foreshore and on Hutt Road up to 1km from Jackson Street. Some of these motels are excellent and well deserved of four star Qualmark ratings. These motels have continued to refurbish as they should but it's been many years since the youngest of these establishments signed off with the builders.
But over the past few months there has been a flurry of activity from developers. Building consents officers have been kept busy at Hutt City Council with plans for no less than five new tourist accommodation developments crossing the table. Petone Workingmens' Club is looking toward a 70 room hotel and conference rooms, Quest Apartments have approval for a new development on Jackson Street, the owners of Qualmark 5 star, enviro gold, Boulcott Lodge have broken ground in Cuba Street just around the corner and two new multi story developments have the go ahead on The Esplanade overlooking the harbour.
Again simplifying, but here's a theory for how this tipping point has come about. Early to mid 1900s and Petone is a thriving service town for meatworks, rail yards and General Motors production plant; good times for Jackson Street and Petone. As these businesses closed, the people departed and left behind wonderful 1930s architecture which would deteriorate over the coming decades. No jobs, no people and the houses become cheap, low rent accommodation. Cheap, low rent housing attracts students. Students eventually make it trendy. Trendy makes it popular. Popular makes it more valuable and Petone is back on top again.
Petone businesses and tourist operators have been banging the drum for the past seven years about how special the place is and telling tourists to make their way out here. All of a sudden in the past 8 months it appears the developers of tourist accommodation have heard the beat of those drums and they are coming. I would love to have the time to delve into the finer details of what has brought about this tipping point, but that's not what they pay me for. Never know, it might be worthy of a chapter in another Malcolm Gladwell book.
In 12 months I imagine my stories of Petone will be about not just coming for the day but coming and staying for a few nights. Can't wait!
David Hancock is the visitor development manager for Hutt City, Wellington, New Zealand and would be delighted to receive comments on this or any other topic. http://www.huttvalleynz.com/
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