By Talaia Mika of 
Sir Ewan Smith was invited as the guest speaker to Cook Islands Tourism Council’s Christmas General Meeting. Photo: Cook Islands News
A long-time aviator and founder of Air Rarotonga, Sir Ewan Smith recalled with pride his decades-long journey from a teenage pilot stepping off a Hawker-Siddeley 748 in 1973 to leading one of the most important pillars of the Cook Islands tourism economy today.
Sir Ewan, who has been the managing director of Air Rarotonga Ltd since 1978, was recently recognised in the New Zealand King's Birthday Honours after he was knighted for services to Cook Islands business and tourism.
Speaking as the guest of honour of Thursday's Cook Islands Tourism Industry Council (CITIC) Christmas general meeting, Sir Smith explained he charted a course through half a century of ups and downs.
He delivered a stark message to industry peers saying tourism is not only the engine of national prosperity but the lifeline of individual Cook Islanders' economic independence.
He first arrived in Rarotonga as a "wide eyed 22-year old pilot and aircraft engineer," when the national carrier Cook Islands Airways was "one plane and one staff member."
He recalled the challenges of being the "chief and only pilot" of that new airline, a daunting responsibility for someone "with acne and hardly in long pants."
Over decades, Air Rarotonga expanded building hangars, upgrading aircraft, establishing new airstrips in the Southern Group. Photo: RNZI Walter Zweifel
Back then, service was sparse according to Smith. "The 9-passenger Britten Norman Island" aircraft flew only a handful of weekly flights to Aitutaki, ferrying roughly 25 passengers. That all changed soon after the arrival of the first DC-8 jets from New Zealand, when "the quiet street in Avarua became busier as 1-200 people arrived each week instead of the 25 on the 748," he said.
But, full of ambition, he set his sights higher. In partnership with engineer Ian Rhodes and the local Hunter family, he established Air Rarotonga.
Their humble beginnings, "a 5-passenger Cessna," a hand-pumped refueller, bookings taken over a party-line hand-cranked phone, stand in sharp contrast to the multimillion-dollar airline and tourist infrastructure they would eventually build.
"In your twenties you can be pretty brave and probably stupid," he told the crowd and added, "we nailed the fun part."
Over decades, Air Rarotonga expanded building hangars, upgrading aircraft, establishing new airstrips in the Southern Group, extending services to outer islands, and developing ground-handling, cargo and medevac services.
The airline also acquired Cook Islands Airways, closing the loop on a journey that first began more than 50 years ago.
As Smith traced the arc of his aviation career, he stressed time and again the central role tourism has played in shaping Cook Islands' economy and the lives of ordinary Cook Islanders.
He said tourism "does the heavy lifting in our economy," and reflected on the power of tourism to provide every Cook Islander the opportunity to prosper.
"Given our population size, we have arrived near something of an economic sweet spot where any Cook Islander can enter this industry and prosper if they wish," he said.
"You don't know what's out there till you're out there," he said - a principle he first learnt at a tourism conference in Hawaii decades ago.
That philosophy underpinned his belief that beyond flights and tours what makes the Cook Islands special is "land, food security and the personal freedom to move," together with "natural hospitality" and the enduring strength of "Polynesian culture."
It is this mix of capitalist enterprise and cultural foundation, he said, that underpins the long-term viability of tourism here.
Smith did not shy away from acknowledging the challenges the world has faced since he first flew to Rarotonga in 1973.
He listed crises from the oil shocks to global wars, the financial crises, 9/11, Y2K, the global financial crisis, and most recently the Covid-19 pandemic.
But he told the tourism gathering that "we don't have a crisis situation anymore. It's situation normal."
Still, he said tourism shows its strength in resilience, interruptions may be inevitable, but recovery always follows.
"Tourism only ever interrupted for a short time," he said. "People soon find ways to recommence travelling and discovering new places."
And for the Cook Islands, he cautioned, any talk of economic diversification whether in seabed minerals or new financial services must be weighed carefully against potential harm to the tourism industry.
He said it demands "a rugged assessment" before going further.
Perhaps his most pointed warning came as a call to preserve what tourism has given Cook Islanders: the dignity, opportunity and autonomy to chart their own path.
He urged fellow industry members and policymakers to remember that the strength of tourism rests not on clichés like "Paradise on a painted ocean," but on the real value of culture, land, food security and personal freedom.
"Lose those and we lose the industry," he said.
