App idea makes for happy campers

Former Whanganui High School student Adam Hutchinson receiving a national award for his tourism app that started as a hobby.
PHOTO / Supplied

EMMA RUSSELL continues her series charting the stories of former Whanganui students who have gone on to success in the big, wide world.

Each night before bed Adam Hutchinson would chip away at a project he saw as "just a fun hobby".

Since then his hobby has transitioned into an award-winning smartphone app for tourists - not to mention an international operation.

The former Whanganui High School student said his success story started after he got yarning to some tourists about troubles they'd been having getting around the place.

"I found that a lot of international tourists were paying a lot of money to come to New Zealand but once they got on the road they struggled to find things like public toilets or a nearby campsites."

After finishing his studies at Lincoln University Adam contacted all the councils around New Zealand and requested all data locating public toilets, dump stations and campsites.

"I was able to get 6000 GPS co-ordinates of these places around New Zealand and put together a small group of friends who were developers."

And so came the idea of a smartphone app he called CamperMate.

Adam said the timing of the launch could not have been better.

"We were able to get it up and running at the time of the 2011 Rugby World Cup - when every campsite in New Zealand was booked out."

So what did Adam and his team do?

They hopped on a campervan of their own, visited all the popular campsites and cooked free bacon and eggs for tourists while getting them hooked up on to their free app.

Adam said it was great to get the ball rolling but the 6000 GPS co-ordinates they got from the councils was only a small part of the picture.

"What worked was there was a function we created in the app that would crowd-source new locations so users could add spots with our verification.

"I would sit there at the end of each day and manually verify all of these submissions that were coming through."

In two years they were able to turn 6000 GPS co-ordinates into 13,000.

Taking it a step further, Adam went on to promote campsites and other tourist hotspots through his app that rebranded to GeoZone.

"Creating this network of apps for companies is when my hobby became a business because we were able to grab on to this advertising opportunity."

He now has more than 37,000 people using GeoZone in New Zealand and Australia and he has every kilometre across New Zealand covered.

Adam sold GeoZone to Tourism Holdings in 2015 but still maintains an active role within the company.

He said as a start-up company it can be difficult establishing credibility but the acquisition was really good.

"It not only gave us credibility within the industry but also a really great partner to work with.

"We got in this to create new innovative ideas and it's been great to continue to explore that with the backing we needed."

Adam has also worked with Whanganui's former mayor Annette Main to create a civil defence emergency alert for tourists to warn them of a natural disaster.

He said he will continue to work with local councils on projects like this in the future.

The advice he has for students considering diving into their own start-up company is to find something they are really passionate about.

"Quite often on those down times when things are really difficult it's going to be that passion that drives you forward."

By Emma Russell
Wanganui Chronicle 2/1/18