Jet boating sells on adrenaline, and adrenaline sells on reviews. Guests booking a trip with New Zealand River Jet in Rotorua often decide same-day. They’re scrolling TripAdvisor on their phone, picking between a dozen operators promising the same thing: speed, spins, and a soaking. Rank low, and you don’t get the booking. It’s that direct.

Tony Brooks joined as General Manager in 2016, after a decade in corporate sales and marketing. That’s exactly the problem he inherited. New Zealand River Jet sat 8th in its category and 15th overall for activities in Rotorua. Fixing that wasn’t going to come from a faster boat. It was going to come from what happened before and after the ride.

What New Zealand River Jet Was Missing

Check-in ran on paper waivers and clipboards, the same as most operators on the water. On a jet boat, that’s a specific kind of problem. Forms get wet and signatures get illegible. Staff have no fast way to confirm exactly who’s on board before the boat pushes off.

It also meant the business was collecting almost nothing about its own guests. No emails at scale, no data on where bookings were coming from. No way to turn a great ride into a public review before the moment passed.

“If you want to be at the top of TripAdvisor and other ranking sites, your whole operation has to be five stars to get a high rating. From the presentation of the business and the equipment you use, to the quality and energy of the staff. Every detail counts.”

— Tony Brooks

What Happened When Check-In Went Digital

Wherewolf replaced the clipboard with a digital waiver, signed before guests reach the boat. For a ride where every seat needs to be confirmed and briefed before departure, that matters. It gives staff a clean, instant read on who’s checked in: no paper, no guesswork, no chasing signatures between trips.

The bigger shift happened after guests stepped off the boat. Wherewolf automatically sends a follow-up email the moment the ride ends. It includes a direct link to leave a review on TripAdvisor, Instagram, and Facebook. For a thrill activity, that timing is the whole game. Guests are still buzzing from the ride when that email lands. They’re not trying to reconstruct the feeling from memory a week later.

“There’s no doubt that we couldn’t have made inroads on Instagram and TripAdvisor without Wherewolf. It paid for itself in the first three months of use.”

— Tony Brooks

The rankings moved to prove it.

“When we launched Wherewolf, we were 8th in our category and 15th overall for activities. Today, we’re the number one boat tour and water activity in Rotorua and 4th in all overall activities. That’s money in our pocket.”

— Tony Brooks

A Clearer Picture, Sharper Marketing

Every digital waiver also captures every adult on board, not just the person who made the booking. For the first time, River Jet had a real dataset on who was actually riding. That meant knowing where they were travelling from, their age range, and how that shifted by season. Those insights didn’t just sit in a dashboard. They started shaping real decisions across the business, starting with the one that mattered most: marketing.

“In our gut, we knew Australia was big for us. After the first three months using Wherewolf, the data confirmed it. We took $30,000 of our marketing budget spent toward New Zealand–based advertising and reinvested it into building relationships with agents on Australia’s eastern seaboard. The results have been incredible, and a direct result of knowing exactly where our customers were coming from.”

“I now know who my customers are, where they come from, their age group, demographics. I have all the essential information I need to make the right decision so I can allocate my marketing budget.”

— Tony Brooks

The Ride Was the Product. The Waiver Became the Growth Engine.

For an operator competing on rankings guests check before they even book, the waiver had to earn its keep. It stopped being a compliance formality and started doing real work. Faster check-ins. A live read on who’s booking and where they’re from. Reviews captured at the exact moment guests are most likely to leave one.

“I can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t want this for their business. It just makes sense if you want to give your owners a better return on investment. That’s what they hire someone like me to do.”

— Tony Brooks