Tourism students have bundled up the end of their course this week with a conference.
The event management students, studying the Diploma in Tourism at Bay of Plenty Polytechnic, organised the conference for the Association of Teen Parents Educators of New Zealand.

These Bay of Plenty Polytechnic students are running this year's Association of Teen Parents Educators of New Zealand conference.

It is the final group assessment for their year long course.
Student Sara Austin says the conference, held Thursday and Friday, is running smoothly.
"It's been absolutely fantastic, a really great experience," says Sara.
She says the students have gained great experience with having to deal with all the things that you can't plan for.
"You can read how to do it in a book, but there is nothing like putting it into practice."
The conference, held at the Bay of Plenty Polytechnic Windermere campus, is an annual event for the association where teachers from all of the Teen Parent units in New Zealand are invited to attend a two day conference consisting of a variety of workshops and guest speakers.
The theme of the conference is 'filing your kete', kete being Maori flax basket, the theme denotes conference delegates collecting information and knowledge to take away with them and invest in their students.
The 19 tourism students have planned, budgeted, organised and promoted this event.
Working from a client brief the students split into two teams, the Human Resources Team and the Venue Coordination Team. Each team nominated a team leader to correspond with the client in order to ensure professionalism throughout all aspects of the conference. The students have been responsible for the theme of the event, catering, venue, taking care of guest speakers and other aspects of the conference.

By Sheryl Brown