Lessons from across the Tasman

We are delighted to share that the final report from our New Zealand Retirement Living Study Tour is now available.

For those who joined us, the tour was a remarkable experience. For those who couldn’t make it this time, the report offers a rich and detailed account of everything we encountered, explored and brought home with us.

One of the most valuable aspects of the study tour was the opportunity it created for genuine peer collaboration. When leaders from across our network travel and learn together, the conversations that happen – on the bus, over dinner, walking through a village – are just as valuable as the formal site visits. This tour was no different. Delegates returned not only with new ideas for their own organisations and communities, but with strengthened relationships and a deeper sense of what it means to be part of this network.

New Zealand’s retirement living sector offered us a compelling and, at times, thought-provoking lens through which to examine our own practice. Several themes stood out clearly.

Perhaps the most striking was the way New Zealand villages actively integrate the surrounding community into village life – not as an afterthought, but as a deliberate and deeply held philosophy. Residents are not isolated from the world beyond the village gate; instead, the village becomes a hub, and the broader community becomes part of the fabric of daily life.

Equally impressive was the range and quality of resources available to residents within the village setting – from wellness and lifestyle offerings to chaplaincy, cultural engagement and intergenerational connection. The message was clear: a well-resourced village is not a luxury; it is what good retirement living looks like.

If there is one thing that stands above all else from this tour, it is the connection it fostered among our own members. Travelling and learning together create a kind of trust and collegiality that is difficult to replicate in any other setting. Delegates returned to their organisations energised, informed and perhaps most importantly, more deeply connected to the people in this network who are walking the same road.

That spirit of shared learning and mutual support is exactly what the Shared Resource Model is built on, and this study tour is one of its finest expressions.

You can access the NZ Study Tour Report here.