Tutoko Outdoor Guides Ltd is a hiking and trekking guide company mainly for Japanese tourists, and therefore the main language of our Web site is Japanese.
But even though we specialize in guiding tours for Japanese tourists, we would still like to introduce ourselves to local New Zealanders and people from other countries, and this is why we have created the English version of our web site. Unfortunately, because our guided tours are conducted in Japanese we may not be able to guide people of other cultures ourselves, but we have linked our site to other guided walk companies in Te Anau, you can access to these from
Destination Fiordland, who may be able to help.
We sincerely wish that our web site have been of some help to you, and will be honoured if this web site could assist you in any way as you create great memories and experiences in Te Anau, New Zealand.
Our company, Tutoko Outdoor Guides Ltd, was established in 2000 as a hiking and trekking guide company. Since then, we have guided countless numbers of Japanese tourists to this day.
Founders of Tutoko Outdoor Guides, Akihito and Misako Ogawa, originally came to New Zealand on a working holiday in 1994.
They have now been living in New Zealand for over 15 years,after acquiring their permanent resident status in 1995.
Our company director, Akihito “Aki” Ogawa has lived in Te Anau since 1994. He spent the first 5 years there as a trekking guide, and has now walked most tracks and trails in the South Island.
Mountaineering is also a passion for Akihito, and he has completed numerous ascents within Fiordland National Park.
Having a clear vision of creating his own guiding company,Akihito left the guiding company he was working for in 1999. Misako and he then spent the next two years acquiring guiding concessions and preparing to launch his own guiding company, Tutoko Outdoor Guides Ltd, which is now in full operation.
An abundance of experience and knowledge as a mountaineer and as a guide is at the base of who Akihito is. He believes in treating everyone fairly, and this attitude has been the key to success in his field of work. His reputation has earned him the trust of his company staff,the clients, and the local residents of Te Anau as a professional trekking guide and company director.
One more founder, Akihito’s partner, Misako “Missy”Ogawa started her career as a tour guide at Queenstown in 1994. She became interested in trekking after doing some work as a trekking guide, and began trekking in her spare time.
She lived away from Akihito for approximately five and half years when working as a tour guide, but decided to move into Te Anau with Akihito after the launch of Tutoko Outdoor Guides Ltd.
Misako (everyone call “Missy” to her) is in charge of all tours and hiking arrangements, accounting, staff management,web site management, company publication and general administration. She is also one of the trekking guides at the company.
The Company is also being run with the help of one dedicated staff:
Junichi “Jun” Tanaka, who has a solo ascent of Mt. Cook in January 2006 under his belt.
Their knowledge and experience was put into publishing their own book, “New Zealand plants” (Japanese edition), which is being sold both in Japan and New Zealand.
Because trekking is potentially a dangerous activity,we have deliberately kept the number of staff low.
We believe that having a small number of well-trained and experienced staff, maintaining a high quality of business management,and building strong bonds within the company help us to provide a truly high-quality trekking service to our clients.
