Ama Mosese

Representing the levels and forms of aroha that can be found throughout our lives across our many communities. We acknowledge the wide range of obstacles and the journey it takes to overcoming everything that stands in our way to expressing aroha within.

Ko wai koe? What are your strengths/weakness?

Kia Ora Tatou, Talofa lava and what’s up. My name is Ama and my story starts in the land down under. I was born in Australia and I’m what’s considered a global citizen but I am actually a proud Pacific woman! 

Te taha toku Māmā, no Te Taitokerau, no Te Rarawa te iwi
Ma le itu o lo’u Tāma, sau mai le nu’u Tufuiopa ma Afega I Samoa. 

And on top of all that, I’m a proud resident of Māngere, South Auckland I am the co-owner of Glorious NZ, offering small group tours. A strength for me is being a people person. In this job, you really have to be able to connect well with all different types of people. There’s not a person that I don’t enjoy sitting down and having a chat with. I do love a good chat. 

You need to have really good organisational skills, be able to relate to people, and have good customer service. I think those are things that are so easy for us as Māori/Pacific people, we’re raised in that way, to be good hosts, to show Manaakitanga. There’s no other way we can really be. That’s just how we are, and a lot of the guests have come here to experience that from us.

My weaknesses are emails and writing things down. Being such a people person, when I go onto a website, the first thing I do is look for a phone number – just to talk to people rather than e-mail. I think that’s a bit of a weakness sometimes

Seeking guidance from our kaitiaki Hiwa-i-te-rangi, we take a journey through our different aspirations, goals and dreams. This tohu acknowledges hard work, wisdom, the reach of ones goals and the desire that comes from this mahi.

What were/are your career aspirations leading into your chosen career path?​

If you had said to me this time last year, that I’d be running my own business and doing tours for my own company, I would have said no way. I never really thought that I would be where I am now, but the need was so big.  

My journey into the tourism industry and starting my own business within that industry here in Aotearoa is something that I kind of just fell into. The gap in the market for indigenous tourism here in Tāmaki Makaurau was just so big that I kept being dragged into it.

It got to the point where we couldn’t not act anymore! We had to start focusing on indigenous Māori tourism here in Auckland, which is the biggest Polynesian city in the whole world, for guests to come here and be able to experience our culture.  

It got to the point where I said to my sister – who is also a tour guide – I think we need to do our own thing. We wanted to do tours and activities that really aligned more with who we are and our beliefs. In the end, people begging for this service and we just had to do it.  

Now that I’m here, we have big goals to help connect people to our culture and connect our people to the world. Funnily enough, my Mum (who we lost to breast cancer seven years ago) saw this for us over a decade ago. I just took all these years to convince myself, so I guess the moral of the story is that mums always know best!

With adventure comes challenges as well as obstacles to overcome. We stand proud as we overcome these obstacles. This tohu draws inspiration from the Niho Taniwha and Aramoana patterns. We acknowledge reaching our destination and preparing ourselves for the many new adventures ahead.

How wīwī wāwā has your career adventure been?​

I was actually working in the mines in Australia before I moved home. My sister was a tour guide here and had been for about six or seven years. And she said, I can get you a job as a tour guide. And I was like, oh that sounds like just babysitting adults, no thanks ha-ha.

And then she said it’s really easy, you get to do cool things like go bungee jumping, skiing, whatever the guests order. And when you live somewhere else overseas, you have a lot of fun and friends will come over and then you end up showing them the local sights. 

So far, we haven’t had any major setbacks. There is so much to do when stepping out on your own and trying to build your own little company. We have a long road ahead of us and our biggest challenges are still to come. But we’re enjoying learning as we go. We knew absolutely nothing about business this time last year, but it’s been a fun process so far. 

These patterns represent bravery and being strong in the face of adversity. We strive to be persistent and positively challenge anything that threatens to alter, restrict, and put a barrier in the way of our desired pathway.

What was your defining moment?  What words of wisdom or change in heart, changed your stars?​

The summer period of 2023 was a huge eye opener and was where I really started being pulled into the niche market of Indigenous Tourism in Tāmaki Makaurau. Tourism in NZ is seasonal, so summer is the only real time there’s steady work in this industry.

Last summer, there wasn’t a day I didn’t have a bus of 25 tourists in my van, showing them around Auckland and the surrounds. I was taking them to real kiwi sites and activities but the majority of them had come all the way down to NZ to experience Māori culture – see a haka, eat a hangi, hear our stories, and they just weren’t getting that.

The companies we were contracting to at the time also didn’t know how to give them those experiences. So, my sister and I decided we needed to do our own thing in the tour game. Fill the gap and do something meaningful for guests and ourselves: GloriousNZ.

Here we are drawing inspiration from the Pūhoro pattern.  The pūhoro is used here to represent the strength, speed and agility needed to move forward and accomplish ones goals.

What future actions/recommendations do you have for those who want to be in a career like yours?​

We hope that more of our people get into tourism – in particular, tour guiding. It’s a great way to make a living. We’re blessed that there are a couple skill sets it does pay to have: being organised, communicating well, general customer service, but overall, mostly everything can be learnt!   

All our guests really want is for us to be ourselves, authentically Māori, Pasifika…just us. They’ve travelled halfway across the world to come here, in the hopes of meeting someone like us! We are special, we are unique, and we hope that more of our people get to really understand this – especially our rangatahi. 

Success, best mentioned in the whakatauki “Tūwhitia te hopo, mairangatia te angitū!” Feel the fear and do it anyway!

What are some the failures/challenges in your life that have helped with your chosen career path? What are some memorable wins for your chosen path?​

Growing up, I remember wishing I had a more stable and normal life like everyone else. But now, I can see that every place I went to, every trip I’ve done, every experience I’ve had, has shaped me and made me the perfect person for this job.  

Having lived in so many different places and travelling a lot has given me the life skills to be relatable to a wide variety of people. It’s broadened my horizons and it’s opened my thinking to understand people on a real personal level. 

A couple of recent wins that are never something on my mind, but I sometimes find out later on, is that I have a lot of good reviews online. Apparently, I’ve only got 5 stars so far. I am proud of that because it means that my guests get to experience the true essence of Manaakitanga, while here on our whenua. I want every guest I encounter to leave filled with aroha and only good memories of their time with us here in Aotearoa.