Akaroa - Almost as French as my Toyota

Dear Akaroa

I expect you’re a proud town, so please understand my intentions are good, and my criticism is purely constructive to make you aware of your biggest and yet most underutilised tourist attraction.

Firstly, my French repertoire only consists of “Bon Jour”, “Merci”, and “Repertoire” so I expected to be Le Dazzled by visiting the beautiful little historic French settlement of Akaroa.
I expected to have my senses indulged with a blast of “French-ness” right here in my home country of New Zealand.

Oh boy, was that a mistake. It turned out that I was heavily over-qualified for Akaroa armed with my three French words.

You see, even though you’re a historic French settlement with French roadsigns and a couple of French flags flapping in “le breeze”, the amount of actual French feel in every cafe, gift shop and tour agent is utterly (and very disappointingly) non existent.

Yes, you are a pretty town with nice harbour views, but don’t kid yourself – you don’t have anything that the Bay of Islands doesn’t.
This makes you identical to perhaps a dozen other scenic towns throughout New Zealand. And perhaps that’s why I stumbled across so many buildings with For Lease signs hanging in the windows compared to the last time I saw you.

I have the solution for you however. You’ve patiently sat through my criticism, now I’m delighted to offer you the constructive part:

Ask yourself what you have that’s different from those other scenic, dolphin-rich, harbour towns around the country.
Have you figured it out?
If not, I’ll tell you what makes you different at absolutely no charge: It’s your French heritage.

Your French heritage is something to be proud of; something that makes you different; and something to stop your businesses from suffering during the winter months and/or running away permanently.

I can’t stress enough that you should be aware of it, you should use it, you must exploit it, and you’d be mind-numbingly crazy not to make it work for you.

But how do you do this? Once again, don’t sweat it mate. I’ll tell you for nothing:
Go online and buy a few dozen French flags of all sizes then hang them from every business window. Then put little french flags in the middle of cafe tables, add a little French food into the menus. Make sure you also put a French flair into your business names.
For example, a bakery should be a Pâtisserie, a cafe should be a Café, and every customer should be greeted with a simple “Bon Jour”.

To be brutally honest, I was shocked to find you weren’t already doing it. I wonder how many other hundreds of visitors walk away each day with the same Faux-French feeling? I wonder if they’ll ever come back?

Come on Akaroa, I like you and you’ve got nothing to lose – yet everything to gain. Go and buy some flags, learn a couple of French words, and bring your history to the surface so you can STAND OUT!

Or you can be Paihia’s little brother for another decade.