She likened it to accommodation choices in Queenstown.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor someone who goes on holiday, they can stay in an Airbnb, or they can stay in a luxury lodge, or they can stay in a backpackers, or a motel, that\u2019s sort of what you\u2019re personally looking for and what you\u2019re wanting to spend.\u201d<\/p>\n
That framing of choice, detail and curation ran through the way she talked about the agency.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s more about the details, as opposed to what perhaps places like a brothel are offering.\u201d<\/p>\n
The women she represented, she described as \u201carticulate, intelligent, attractive, sportive, sporty, knowledgeable of Queenstown\u201d – many of them held prestigious professional careers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey work for government, they work in banking, finance, they work in hospitality,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had girls that do the job because they want to get their helicopter licence. I\u2019ve had girls that do the job because they want to pay off their student loan and put a deposit on a house.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t tend to work with girls who \u2026 do the job because they want to buy a Louis Vuitton handbag.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bon Ton is Queenstown’s only boutique escort agency. Photo \/ File<\/p>\n
For some women, she said, the appeal lay in the boundaries.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the booking is over, they walk out the door and that\u2019s it, they forget about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Souness established Bon Ton in 2003, the year prostitution was decriminalised in New Zealand under the Prostitution Reform Act, after spending decades abroad working in fashion and modelling.<\/p>\n
Immediately before returning to New Zealand, she had been running a production company in Italy, producing \u201cevents and music videos and documentaries and things like that at red carpet events\u201d.<\/p>\n
When she returned to home soil, she found fewer opportunities in the creative industries.<\/p>\n
\u201cLord of the Rings hadn\u2019t yet come out and New Zealand was still a little bit in the dark ages back then insofar as creative industries and the value that they hold,\u201d Souness said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was having lunch one day with a friend who happened to be the Italian ambassador at the time, and he said to me, \u2018This industry is about to be decriminalised, why don\u2019t you open up a sort of a boutique high-class industry?\u2019. And I said that\u2019s an amazing idea. I think I\u2019ll try that. And so I did. I never really looked back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her business operates within a district that remains one of the most restrictive in the country when it comes to the location of brothels.<\/p>\n
In 2024, the Queenstown Lakes District Council reviewed its Brothel Control Bylaw.<\/p>\n
Councillors ultimately approved a slight expansion of the areas in which brothels could operate within the Queenstown and W\u0101naka CBDs, despite none of the 20 submitters supporting that \u201cmiddle ground\u201d option.<\/p>\n
Panel chairman, councillor Cody Tucker, said at the time the decision was an attempt to balance the Prostitution Reform Act with community sentiment.<\/p>\n
The bylaw, which comes into effect on September 1, means the district continues to tightly define where commercial sex businesses can operate.<\/p>\n
There have been no registered brothels in Queenstown since 2013.<\/p>\n
Souness said the business, like many in Queenstown, depended very much on seasonal tourism flow.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the shoulder seasons, it\u2019s obviously more domestic \u2026 but in the high seasons, like winter, it\u2019s definitely people arriving internationally.”<\/p>\n
Souness founded Bon Ton in 2003, the same year prostitution was legalised in New Zealand. Photo \/ 123RF<\/p>\n
Her clients were not exclusively ultra-wealthy, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not necessarily high rollers … It can be somebody who\u2019s here for a conference or something and just wants to spend an evening going to dinner, talking, and then the obvious.\u201d<\/p>\n
By design, Bon Ton closes at 9pm \u2013 a decision that closes out \u201cthe type of traveller or person who decides they want to see someone after they\u2019ve exited a club or a pub\u201d.<\/p>\n
Souness said most bookings took place at the guests\u2019 accommodation, be it hotels or AirBnB\u2019s or privately booked residences.<\/p>\n
From there, some engagements extend into the experiences Queenstown is known for.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey might whisk them off in a helicopter to a luxury lodge somewhere for the weekend or take them heli-skiing,\u201d – longer bookings were not uncommon, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, the bulk is done on shorter bookings like two to three hours, but we regularly have overnighters and longer bookings as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Occasionally, she said, clients arranged travel beyond Queenstown, including to Australia and Europe.<\/p>\n
Operating under New Zealand\u2019s decriminalised framework had, in her view, been transformative.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s fantastic. It\u2019s completely changed the attitude towards the industry, especially with the police,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like any other business. It has protection under the law. The people who work in it have protection under the law, as do clients.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sex worker advocates have previously argued that tighter zoning rules can undermine that protection by limiting where people can legally operate. Dame Catherine Healy, of the Aotearoa New Zealand Sex Workers\u2019 Collective, said during last year\u2019s bylaw consultation that restricting locations risked pushing sex work outside formal protections and increasing health and safety risks.<\/p>\n
Souness said the shift in policing was significant in cases where something went wrong. She recounted a case involving another agency where a client removed a condom without consent.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe police were amazing. They arrived immediately and were super respectful.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Souness, the legal framework underpinned what she saw as a fundamental principle.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s two consenting adults doing something they want to do. But if something goes wrong, they should be afforded the same sort of protection under the law.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over time, she had also noticed changes in who was booking.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are having a massive increase in couples booking … It\u2019s a safe way for people to experiment … They don\u2019t see the girl ever again, and jealousies and infidelities, those sorts of things, don\u2019t come.\u201d<\/p>\n
Public perceptions, she said, often lagged behind that reality \u2013 including a common misconception that women did not enjoy the work.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think still today a lot of people ask, why are you doing this? To which I say to the girls, we ask the client, why are you doing this?\u201d<\/p>\n
She said women enjoyed sex \u201cjust as much as men do\u201d and valued the financial freedom.<\/p>\n
Ben Tomsett is a multimedia journalist based in Dunedin. He joined the Herald in 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"She likened it to accommodation choices in Queenstown. \u201cFor someone who goes on holiday, they can stay in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":317761,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[26590,3041,95,16717,88484,15892,1288,26266,23845,91364,222,2944,302,26662,33843,80151,10882,206,111,43,139,12909,69,1136,20930,114732,64867,96122,2940,1754,102,2963],"class_list":{"0":"post-317760","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-26590","9":"tag-agency","10":"tag-and","11":"tag-becoming","12":"tag-bon","13":"tag-boutique","14":"tag-capital","15":"tag-cemented","16":"tag-clients","17":"tag-escort","18":"tag-fast","19":"tag-inside","20":"tag-its","21":"tag-itself","22":"tag-jets","23":"tag-lining","24":"tag-lists","25":"tag-luxury","26":"tag-new-zealand","27":"tag-news","28":"tag-newzealand","29":"tag-normal","30":"tag-nz","31":"tag-private","32":"tag-queenstown","33":"tag-queenstowns","34":"tag-tarmac","35":"tag-ton","36":"tag-wealthy","37":"tag-wine","38":"tag-with","39":"tag-zealands"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317760\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}