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15.7% of West Coast employees work in tourism and hospitality

Copilot training for West Coast tourism operators

Make the booking office and operations team work from the same checked information. Practise turning reports and correspondence into clear, agreed next steps.

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Employees in tourism and hospitality
2,354West Coast, February 2025
Share of West Coast employees
15.7%1 of 16 regions
Share across New Zealand
9.2%all regions, February 2025
Location quotient
1.70×more concentrated than nationally

Tourism and hospitality in West Coast

A generic West Coast accommodation business using Microsoft 365 can start with a booking export and an unresolved guest email. Copilot offers analysis in Excel, drafting in Word and Outlook, and meeting support in Teams. Confirm the account's available capabilities before using work-data grounding.4 The operational question matters more than trying every feature in a session.

TheColab brings training to Coast visitor workplaces, with exercises for reservations staff, managers and the office administrator. Agree a practice pack in advance and include the person who can verify booking definitions. We work through a report and the communication it supports, with a manager checking the result before it reaches a guest or the wider staff team.

Paid employees in tourism and hospitality went from 2,589 in February 2020 to 2,354 in February 2025 (−9.1%).

Share of paid employees in tourism and hospitality, by region

Share of employees in tourism and hospitality by region, West Coast highlighted
RegionChartShareNZ×
West Coast (this page) 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 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 West Coast

Divisions in tourism and hospitality, West Coast
DivisionChartEmployeesShareNZ×
Hospitality 1,899 12.6% 7.2% 1.8×
Arts and recreation 455 3.0% 2.0% 1.5×

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

  • The 2026 tourism summit addressed emerging technology in visitor discovery and travel planning. Westport's visitor site also lists guided tours and surf services. The region has varied operating models, so a hotel's reporting task should differ from an activity operator's booking task.1,21,2

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

Towns in West Coast

Each town page has its own figures and local brief.

Or see Microsoft Copilot training across West Coast.

Where Copilot helps tourism and hospitality teams

  • Review bookings without mixing categories

    In Excel, define confirmed stays, provisional enquiries and cancelled records. Ask Copilot for a draft summary with an explanation of the grouping. Inspect missing dates and duplicate booking references. A generic accommodation manager checks it against the booking export before using the report to discuss staffing or demand.

    • Hospitality operations manager
    • Copilot in Excel

  • Draft a careful guest response

    Summarise a selected Outlook conversation and identify what the guest is actually asking. Use the confirmed booking facts and approved policy to draft a response. The reservations lead reviews any remedy, commitment or statement about availability. Keep the final reply tied to the guest's real booking rather than a general policy summary.

    • Reservations lead
    • Copilot in Outlook

  • Write the next shift's briefing

    Provide Word with the manager's accepted actions and current operating notes. Draft a briefing that identifies owners and questions still unresolved. Where Teams functions are enabled, compare it with the reviewed meeting actions. Staff should be able to tell what has been decided and what needs confirmation before service begins.

    • Duty supervisor
    • Copilot in Word and Teams

  • Build a procedure-finding prototype

    Use Copilot Studio to create an internal helper over approved reception procedures. Studio supports custom agents with selected knowledge.5 Ask it about an incomplete booking enquiry and a procedure not in its source set. Test whether it admits the gap and routes staff to the right person before allowing wider use.

    • Business technology owner
    • Copilot Studio

Review an operating report before the shift briefing

  1. Choose a clean booking sample and record the definitions used for confirmed and cancelled entries.
  2. Prepare an Excel summary and reconcile the suggested totals with the booking export.
  3. Agree operating actions with the manager, then draft the staff briefing in Word.
  4. Check the briefing against reviewed meeting notes and share only the approved operational information.

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 West Coast

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

Tourism and hospitality in West Coast: questions

Can we train reservations and managers together?

Give each role a part in the same exercise. Reservations checks the guest context, the manager checks actions and the administrator checks which information can be shared.

Why practise uncertainty in guest replies?

DWC reported visitor-flow disruption linked to the Knights Point closure. Local operations need a process for confirming access rather than repeating an earlier travel assumption.3

Must we buy more licences before starting?

First inspect current access and choose supported tasks. Microsoft's overview describes different experiences and settings; the pilot should establish what each account can do.4

Can a procedure agent decide refunds?

Keep the initial agent focused on finding approved guidance. The authorised staff member interprets the actual booking and approves the remedy or exception.

How do we know the briefing exercise worked?

Ask another supervisor to identify each decision, its evidence and its owner. Unclear commitments and unsupported details should be corrected before staff use the briefing.

Train your tourism and hospitality team in West Coast

  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 West Coast. 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.