Tony Everitt (49) arrived in Queenstown at the weekend and has just finished his first week on the job as Destination Queenstown's chief executive, in a place he considers to be the premier resort in the world.
The position had been held by David Kennedy until October 2008, who was succeeded by Stephen Pahl.
Mr Pahl left unexpectedly last September to return to Australia.
Skyline Enterprises chairman Ken Matthews was appointed acting chief executive until Mr Everitt took over the reins.
Already, Mr Everitt has got plans to change the way DQ works.
Rather than focusing on the here and now, he is focusing on 2020, intending to establish a strategic plan and work backwards.
"We need to look to 2020, decide what we want Queenstown tourism to be like and then work backwards from that point and start putting things into place now."
Mr Everitt has 15 years of experience in tourism marketing, including three executive jobs for Tourism New Zealand between 1993 and 2006, as regional manager for Japan, marketing manager operations based in Wellington and regional manager for Asia based in Singapore.
In 2006 he was appointed southpacific.travel chief executive, a non-profit organisation marketing and developing tourism in the South Pacific.
Mr Everitt said he had spent the week meeting his staff, assessing their needs and noting potential for development.
He has also met several operators, the local media and some of the 2000 stakeholders he will be representing.
"Anecdotally" there had been mixed reports from the tourism industry, but Mr Everitt was already building a picture of how the resort's tourism industry had withstood the economic downturn - and planning for the industry's recovery.
Some had been "cautiously optimistic", which was the attitude they required, he said.
"In 2006, when I was working for the South Pacific, everybody was celebrating because it was at the peak of the real estate boom.
"I was the bad guy of Fiji tourism because I was saying they needed to be cautious.
"Looking ahead to 2008, things were going to get tough.
"Then in 2008, economists came out and said there's a recession . . . that was information we needed 24 months [earlier]."
Mr Everitt said there was also "exciting work" going on to build "immediate business to Queenstown tourism".
"This includes deploying the $800,000 we have secured from Tourism New Zealand to boost Australian visitors for the autumn and winter."
Mr Everitt has moved to Queenstown with his wife and their 15-year-old son.
His appointment was announced by the DQ board in December.
