Gina, an American from the San Francisco area, moved to the small town of Whitianga in New Zealand. Her friends and extended family were curious about the exotic "island off Australia" and asked her strange questions like, “Have you seen a kangaroo in your backyard yet?” and “Does the water really go down the drain the other way?”
To answer these questions and more, Gina started a website called New Zealand Encounters, which quickly evolved into her planning and booking trips around the country to share the wonders of her new home. NZ Encounters became a popular and successful inbound tourism agency specialising in the luxury US traveller market.
Then September 11th happened, and Americans stopped travelling.
Gina and her colleagues decided to create a new business focused on making booking accommodations easier. Thus, in 2003, they launched New Zealand’s first reservation software company, Global Availability, which later rebranded to ResBook.
In 2007, a Kiwi named John decided he needed a booking engine for his software company’s product suite. John bought ResBook and later married Gina. They combined their companies and knowledge to create Tomahawk, a digital marketing and software development company specialising in tourism. ResBook became one of their key products.
Then came 2020 and Covid. The world stopped travelling.
The Tomahawk team found that what tourism operators needed most during this time was camaraderie, marketing help and training.
Four years later, these three pillars are still strong.
In 2024, ResBook evolved again to meet industry needs, expanding its services to offer budget-friendly websites, effective marketing packages, online and in-person marketing training, and a tourism forum that spans New Zealand, Australia, and the South Pacific.
