Philip Todd

  • Accommodation Sector Chair
  • Southland

I am a proud opiniated Southlander with my family coming from the coal fields of Southland. I am married with three adult children and for the last 21 years together with my wife Diane, we have developed the Invercargill Top 10 Holiday Park from what was a bare paddock. We now have 20 accommodation units and 50 powered sites. I have served on the Board of TOP 10, our local promotion group and have been associated with Hospitality since the MANZ days. Before starting our business, I was the local service manager for the AA and way back in the dim ages did a variety of things included a term in the NZ Army. We travel (or did) a lot and have a unit on the Sunshine Coast that we try to get to twice a year at the minimum. We now have young grandchildren who both live close by so try to fit the running of our business around them to some degree.

I believe implicitly in the fact that while we are all competitors in some ways, we do need the glue of a healthy strong industry body that represents our combined interests at both local and national level. We have noticed one of the biggest challenges is lifting people’s consciousness from the nuts and bolts of their 24/7 business so they see the issues we all face as a collective.

In our time in business, we have seen the move from pencil and paper booking systems to the technology that is widely available today, the unprecedented growth and investment into freedom camping, the arrival of the disruptive Air B&B type apps and the silent ambush of the OTAs who have inserted themselves between our businesses and our customers. 

I want to keep working to make our industry attractive for new people to want to enter and build a team type approach to address new and future challenges and problems.