A boutique Waikanae-based bed and breakfast has struck gold.

Dean and Louise Compton have received a Gold Sustainable Tourism Business Award with a 4 Star Plus rating for their Aston Road Villa.

The award means it’s a best-in-class sustainable tourism business delivering exceptional customer experiences.

“We were very happy because quite a lot of work was involved,” Louise said.

A Qualmark assessor spent three hours at the property looking at four key areas including economic, social and people, environment and culture, and health and safety.

“There’s a lot of paperwork involved but it’s quite useful as it makes you look at your business from all those aspects.”

Louise said it was worth doing especially as “marketeers overseas want to see what standard you are and things like that”.

“The assessor goes through each section, acknowledges what you are doing, and tells you opportunities to improve on.”

A lot of attention involved sustainability.

“Sustainability is a very important aspect of our business and is our point of difference.

“It has always been my focus but more so now with the bed and breakfast.

“Lots of guests are looking for places that promote sustainability.

“Qualmark acknowledges the environmental impact of a business and we had to provide evidence of long-term sustainability.

“We have many initiatives in our environmental policy document which includes a three-year plan.

“We share some of these with our guests.

“Some initiatives we are currently doing include calculating our carbon emissions, continuing to look at ways to reduce energy use, ongoing programme to plant trees on our property as well as donating to Trees That Count each month.

“Later in the year, we are investing in solar panels.”

In 2003, the couple bought a stunning 1.4h slice of land, as an investment, before building a four-bedroom home in 2018.

Part of the property comprises a wing for the bedroom and breakfast: Aston Road Villas features a main bedroom with a veranda, second bedroom, lounge, kitchenette, and a highly specced bathroom.

Creating a bed and breakfast had been something they wanted to do especially as they loved travel and talking to people from different countries.

“We travel a lot overseas and stay in family-run hotels which gave us the idea of setting up a bed and breakfast and hosting overseas guests who we could swap stories with.”

The couple became members of the New Zealand Bed and Breakfast Association before opening Aston Road Villa to guests in August 2019.

“It’s a great network to be part of especially when setting up a bed and breakfast business,” Louise said.

“There’s a number of modules to go through about setting up so that was really good.

“Once we were open, we got into the overseas market using inward tour operators, who work with companies overseas, who send guests to New Zealand.

“We work with about four different companies.

“The tour operators set up the itinerary for them and then the tourists drive around the country and stay in different sorts of accommodation.”

“Our guests come from Netherlands, Germany, United Kingdom … “

Guests generally stay any time between October and March as they escape the northern hemisphere winter.