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9.1% of Southland employees work in tourism and hospitality

Copilot training for Southland accommodation and tourism

Keep guest communication connected to the approved office record. Learn practical Microsoft 365 workflows for reception, functions and visitor operations.

EnquireWhere Copilot helps
Illustration generated with AI.
Employees in tourism and hospitality
4,685Southland, February 2025
Share of Southland employees
9.1%9 of 16 regions
Share across New Zealand
9.2%all regions, February 2025
Location quotient
0.98×close to the national share

Tourism and hospitality in Southland

A function handover can fail when an unconfirmed request looks like an agreed arrangement. In a fictional Invercargill venue lab, the team reviews a guest email, a function sheet and meeting notes. Copilot helps prepare the office draft, then staff check the source of each proposed inclusion before it reaches reception or catering.

ILT's public operations cover city hotels, restaurants and function venues, while RealNZ links Te Ānau with cave and fiord experiences. These sources give the class local context for both venue coordination and excursion enquiries. The lab records are invented, and the course makes no claim about either operator's use of Copilot.2,3

Paid employees in tourism and hospitality went from 4,495 in February 2020 to 4,685 in February 2025 (+4.2%).

Share of paid employees in tourism and hospitality, by region

Share of employees in tourism and hospitality by region, Southland highlighted
RegionChartShareNZ×
West Coast 15.7% 9.2% 1.7×
Otago 14.4% 9.2% 1.6×
Nelson 11.9% 9.2% 1.3×
Tasman 10.0% 9.2% 1.1×
Bay of Plenty 9.5% 9.2% 1.0×
Waikato 9.3% 9.2% 1.0×
Canterbury 9.1% 9.2% 1.0×
Wellington 9.1% 9.2% 1.0×
Southland (this page) 9.1% 9.2% 1.0×
Northland 9.0% 9.2% 1.0×
Auckland 8.8% 9.2% 0.9×
Taranaki 8.7% 9.2% 0.9×
Marlborough 8.5% 9.2% 0.9×
Manawatū-Whanganui 7.7% 9.2% 0.8×
Hawke's Bay 7.3% 9.2% 0.8×
Gisborne 6.6% 9.2% 0.7×

Paid employees at business locations in the region, February 2025. The tick marks the national share. × is the regional share divided by the national share.

Source: Stats NZ, Business Demography Statistics, February 2020 and 2025.

What tourism and hospitality covers in Southland

Divisions in tourism and hospitality, Southland
DivisionChartEmployeesShareNZ×
Hospitality 3,541 6.8% 7.2% 0.9×
Arts and recreation 1,144 2.2% 2.0% 1.1×

ANZSIC06 divisions in this industry group: share of the region's paid employees, against New Zealand.

Source: Stats NZ, Business Demography Statistics, February 2020 and 2025.

Local context

  • Fiordland Business Association describes support and advocacy for local firms, including hospitality and tourism. It provides business-network context for teams working around Te Ānau.44
  • Great South's resident tourism report includes concerns about signs, infrastructure and waste. Staff can use accurate office references to answer the questions their own visitors raise.11

Organisations are named for local context only. No relationship with them is implied.

Towns in Southland

Each town page has its own figures and local brief.

Or see Microsoft Copilot training across Southland.

Where Copilot helps tourism and hospitality teams

  • Draft a guest reply in Outlook

    Use an invented enquiry about a package and a cleared service note. Ask Copilot to prepare a response that preserves unresolved availability and transfer questions. Compare the draft with the booking record before sending. Reception staff should remove any extra inclusion that appeared because the wording sounded natural rather than because it was confirmed.5

    • Reception supervisor
    • Outlook Copilot guest drafting

  • Check a function briefing in Word

    Prepare a Word draft from approved function details and written department notes. Ask for separate headings for agreed arrangements and outstanding confirmations. Include an absent catering sign-off in the fictional example. The venue lead checks that the draft keeps the gap visible before sharing the briefing with service staff.5

    • Functions manager
    • Copilot in Word document preparation

  • Review an Excel booking summary

    Practise on fabricated booking rows with a clear status field. Ask Copilot to organise the workbook or propose a calculation, then inspect the ranges and cancelled entries. Have the reservations owner reproduce a selected total. Keep the exercise's assumptions beside the chart so a staffing discussion starts from checked information.5

    • Reservations office lead
    • Excel Copilot booking analysis

  • Verify a Teams department handover

    Run a mock handover with suitable Teams settings and review the recap. Confirm which requests are still awaiting an answer and who owns the next contact. A hypothetical hotel team can test whether a suggested room change appears as a decision. Keep the checked handover in the venue's usual staff record after review.5

    • Hotel operations coordinator
    • Teams Copilot recap and actions

  • Test a staff information lookup agent

    Use Copilot Studio for an internal prototype with selected reception procedures and current service references. Ask where a policy is stored and include a query beyond the knowledge set. Check the fallback and open the cited source. Do not give the prototype booking-change actions until the business has reviewed its access and decision controls.6

    • Hospitality systems administrator
    • Copilot Studio internal knowledge agent

Review a function request across office records

  1. Collect the confirmed function sheet and a cleared guest message.
  2. Ask Copilot to list agreed arrangements and unresolved requests.
  3. Have reception and catering verify their parts of the draft.
  4. Save the approved handover with the current function record.

Courses

  1. 1Introductory

    Microsoft Copilot foundations

    A first hands-on session on Copilot Chat and Copilot in Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

  2. 2Organisation

    Copilot rollout and readiness

    Prepare the tenant, choose a pilot, and measure whether people use Copilot well.

  3. 3Advanced

    Copilot Studio agents and advanced Excel

    Build and test a Copilot Studio agent for one internal process, and go further with Copilot in Excel.

Tourism and hospitality in other regions

Other industries in Southland

See Microsoft Copilot for tourism and hospitality across New Zealand, or all training in Southland.

Tourism and hospitality in Southland: questions

Can reception and functions staff train together?

Use a shared fictional guest request and assign each department a review task. The group can then see where a draft requires another person's confirmation.

Will an agent show current room availability?

A prototype over documents should be treated as reference lookup. Live availability needs an authorised system connection and business review beyond the starter exercise.6

How do we prepare the Microsoft workspace?

Check participant accounts, meeting settings and permissions on the source folder. Choose exercises that match the Copilot functions your organisation has enabled.5

Can the session take place at our venue?

We deliver on site across Southland, including agreed visitor-business locations. Provide a room where office staff can work with the cleared example records.

Train your tourism and hospitality team in Southland

  1. ScopeHeadcount, sites, Microsoft 365 plan and licences, and the teams you want to start with.
  2. PlanWe propose a course, a pilot group and a format, and agree the files and meetings to use.
  3. TrainOn-site or over Teams, in Outlook, Word, Excel and Teams, with your own work.
  • In person
  • Remote
  • Half-day workshop
  • Full-day workshop
  • Team rollout

Independent training by TheColab. Not affiliated with Microsoft.

Enquire

Tell us about your team in Southland. We reply by email with a suggested course and format.

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Sources

Written 6 October 2026. Employment figures come from Stats NZ Business Demography Statistics.