A retired Rotorua tour guide says the present-day hosts in the city draw on the legacy of tourism founders such as the principal tour guide of the Pink and White Terraces.
A memorial headstone has been unveiled at Te Paakira Marae in Whakarewarewa village commemorating 100 years since the death of Te Paea Hinerangi.
Guide Sophia, as she was known, was living at Te Wairoa on the shores of Lake Tarawera when she was appointed a guide at the famous terraces on the shores of Lake Rotomahana in the early 1870s.
After the site was destroyed by the 1886 Tarawera eruption, she worked as a guide in Rotorua.
Retired Whakarewarewa tour guide Christina Gardiner says Te Paea Hinerangi and other former guides are constantly spoken about.
She says their legacy present-day guides is to be natural and to take pride in themselves.