NEWS, VIEWS AND INFORMATION

We welcome relevant news, views and information - and are generally swamped with it!

Deadline for copy is 9am Wednesdays for publication that night. News can be new initiatives, products or services, staff changes, awards, marketing developments, new research etc.

Information is material which is not news as such but is something that is still important to the industry and which subscribers need to be made aware of.

Speakers' Corner is where anyone may submit articles for consideration - in their own words

Send your news, views and information to: nigel@insidetourism.com

One of three awards Nigel has won over the years.

Nigel hard at work again! Sat besides TIA CEO Tim Cossar.

Prime Minister John Key

Conservation Minister Kate Wilkinson and Nigel's son Corban, at the launch of the first New Zealand Cycle Trail at Ohakune.

ABOUT NIGEL COVENTRY

He was born in that bucolic part of England called the Cotswolds and was therefore weaned on the juice of the apple. The alcoholic variety. That was fortuitous because Nigel had severe asthma and after the family doctor had given up on him his grandparents introduced him to scrumpy in a last-pitch attempt to save him...and he took to it and was thus saved. Praise the Lord! He left school at 16 after the Head Master told him to apply for a journalist's vacancy on the local paper. Not knowing what a journo was he asked a lot of questions - and got the job. Nigel was there during the Great Train Robbery and the announcement that Bletchley would become the first new city ever built in Britain: now the much maligned Milton Keynes.

As a columnist he interviewed many pop stars including the Rolling Stones, The Animals, The Searchers, and The Hollies on numerous occasions. He had driven a mini across Europe many times by the mid 1960s and even visited then taboo countries behind the Iron Curtain such as Romania, Bulgaria and the USSR. He travelled overland to India in 1968 taking three months seeing Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Thailand and then Singapore where he eventually continued by ship to Perth. In Australia he worked on The Launceston Examiner and The Advertiser, Adelaide.

In 1969 he came to Wellington and was power, mining and resources roundsman on The Dominion and then with national TV and radio. The following year he was offered a job on The Borneo Bulletin in Brunei, also covering the Malaysian Borneo states of Sabah and Sarawak. Nigel was the only journalist ever to interview the present Sultan of Brunei's father, the late Sir Omar Ali Saifuddin, the canny power behind the throne at the time. The interview lasted three hours and was serialised in the newspaper. He later wrote the life stories of all major East Malaysian Chief Ministers and Governors. During the Queen's visit to Borneo in 1972 Nigel was introduced to the Queen as "the one who gets it wrong" by a tongue-in-cheek British Resident (High Commissioner). Nigel was the only photographer invited aboard the Royal Yacht Britannia and had both the Brunei royal family and the Queen, Prince Philip and Princess Anne posing for him.

The photograph is on Nigel's office wall in Taumarunui where one can see the Duke whispering to the Queen: "That's the one from the local paper!" Nigel was the only journalist to regularly travel through Brunei, Sabah and Sarawak and was probably the first European newspaperman to visit many of the more isolated villages deep in the jungle. Once, he travelled through the pirate infested waters between Sabah and the southern Philippines in a kumpit which moved at night and with no navigation lights - only to be arrested by the Filipino Constabulary accused of being a spy! He was also somewhat notoriously banned from visiting Sarawak for 10 years - only later to be hosted on a trip by the state government. After three years exploring Asia he took a month long journey from the then Soviet Far East to Moscow, mainly aboard the Trans Siberian. On that trip he spent time in Tashkent, Samarkand and Georgia.

Nigel with his trusty MacBook Pro which he uses to produce Inside Tourism every week as well as a weekly Executive Summary, and a monthly Inside Tourism Industry Diary which are emailed to 17 countries.

Back in England he worked on a weekly newspaper in Aylesbury, Bucks, for three years before returning to Wellington through the US, Canada and the South Pacific. After a spate on The Dom, he was invited to join the then Tourist and Publicity Department (now TNZ), and later the Ministry of Foreign Affairs where he was an Information Liaison Officer. Another three years saw him working as a Press Secretary up the Beehive, firstly for Hugh Templeton, and latterly for Rob Talbot who was Minister of Tourism.

The job of PRO came up at T and P's head office, Nigel applied, got the job but was promptly told he couldn't have it as he was wanted by the Minister. He stunned the departmental establishment by announcing that he would do the two jobs for the same salary. And he did. This was during the notorious Muldoon years and because Nigel wore a trench coat and slunk into head office only two or three days a week one colleague surmised that he was, in fact, working for the SIS!

He left the department in 1985, after eight years in government, to freelance. He has never looked back, other than to retain his contacts up and down the country. It may be hard to believe but Nigel has a black belt in Taekwondo and even founded the British Taekwondo Association, having at one time three clubs in the UK. He was manager of the Brunei team to the first World Taekwondo Championships in Seoul in 1972 and was also manager of the New Zealand team at the World Taekwondo Championships in Taiwan in the early 1980s. Nigel has completed five marathons - four under a credible three hours - but today the only exercise he gets is playing the trumpet! While, he can not often remember what he did the previous day Nigel started playing music again - literally after 50 years - when wife Linda bought him a cornet and he discovered he had not forgotten a thing!

The couple have nine children between then with Corban, 13, and Jordan, 11, living at home. During his travels internationally what were Nigel's most memorable journeys? Cruising the Inside Passage in Alaska - and visiting North Korea! Naturally, his favourite country is New Zealand!