Mark Quickfall - Quick rise

He’s one of New Zealand’s most successful tourism entrepreneurs, having headed up and owned renowned Kiwi tourism operations, but Mark Quickfall didn’t need a business degree to get there.

Instead, he learned his savvy through the school of hard knocks, owning his first local tourism adventure business at 23 and even managing to get paid to do his OE as tour guide to seniors.

“University, for me, was running my own businesses,” he says. “As anyone in business knows, you need to learn quickly.”

He had some good business partners starting out though, working alongside local helicopter legends like Don Spary, Sir Tim Wallis and other skilled pilots, pioneering early helicopter adventure combo trips. All of this was at a very young age, fresh from driving Shotover Jet boats for Trevor and Heather Gamble.

By 23 he’d launched that first tourism adventure business, Pro Jet, and was travelling the world with busloads of senior citizens for Sunbeam Tours. “It was like travelling with multiple sets of grandparents,” he grins. Young Mark’s Kiwi ingenuity saved the day on one occasion when the bus broke down on the autobahn.

He’s survived many tourism industry shocks like the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, but Covid times took the cake, proudly managing to retain his key staff. Once more Mark made it through, still at the helm of his once again thriving Totally Tourism stable.

Raised in suburban Sandringham, Auckland, Mark had an idyllic family upbringing filled with motorbikes, street trolley derbies, beaches and sport, representing Auckland in age-group and U19 rugby before completing a building apprenticeship.

Travel was next until the TV ads said, ‘Don’t leave home until you’ve seen the country’. Queenstown was first before a planned OE.

After pouring drinks at Skyline, a company he’d later be board chairman of, Mark fended off over 100 other applicants for the coveted role of Shotover Jet boat driver.

He learned fast, a new engine failing during a test run, leaving him drifting down the Shotover. “The staff were away at lunch, and I was holding onto the rocks for dear life trying not to get swept down the river.”

Fresh from training, driver Greg Ross handed him the reins to perform the 360-degree spin during a trip, leaving the bewildered passengers extremely concerned. Another day he towed Greg, an accomplished water-skier, up the first gorge on one ski.

“They were fun times.”

Mark then launched his own Pro Jet Adventures in 1981 which was tough. “I had no clients. I’d launch the boat, tie it up at the jetty and pump fuel at Harry Kerslake’s Mobil gas station to get cash flow. You must do the hard yards to build equity.”

Within a year he’d also launched Queenstown’s first ATOZ Visitor Guide with wife Jackie and began working closely with Alpine Helicopters, later The Helicopter Line, operating heli-jetboat combos, before partnering with The Helicopter Line in Heli-Super Jet.

He then became sales and marketing manager for THL Leisure’s 17 operations nationally from 1992, general manager by 1996, overseeing everything from Kelly Tarlton’s and The Helicopter Line to Milford Sound Red Boats and Harris Mountains Heli-skiing. “I remember racing around Wānaka Airfield with Tim Wallis in his Commodore while he was yelling down the phone to Russia trying to explain his great idea for Warbirds, and struggling to convert English to Russian.”

In 1999 Mark established Totally Tourism to purchase his own stable of tourism businesses, including Challenge Rafting and Milford Sound Scenic Flights, buying The Helicopter Line in 2002. He sold the company to Skyline in 2011 before purchasing it back in 2019.

It’s been a family affair with Jackie having worked in the business and well-known tourism personality, stepson Brad Patterson as sales manager.

He’s been a director and chairman of Skyline Enterprises, chaired Destination Queenstown, served on the ITOC board for 14 years and is chairman of Destination Milford Sound.

“I’ve worked and partnered with so many great people in tourism. I never imagined I’d be doing this,” Mark says. “I’m so grateful and fortunate to have seen Queenstown evolve from a small village to what it is now.”

The perks may have gone: “I’d be running late and the girls at the airport desk would let me on my flight at the last minute, kindly taking my keys and parking my car,” Mark grins.

Notorious police sergeant Warwick Maloney’s dealings to unwanted riffraff may be no more and telephone exchange operators no longer know which pub your friends are at.

But Mark still has to pinch himself. “We’re pretty blessed to live in this environment.” He makes the most of it, cycling and enjoying the outdoors with family, including his four much-loved grandkids, also finishing that OE as an almost senior himself and timeout at their Noosa apartment.

Together 44 years, Mark says he wouldn’t be where he is now without Jackie. “She is very capable. She has been the real backbone for me and a huge supporter.”