ROTORUA, New Zealand — Tourism New Zealand welcomed 260 buyers, over 300 exhibitors and media to Rotorua for the annual TRENZ tourism conference.
Tourism is the country’s second biggest sector and a speech from the country’s Prime Minister John Key, who has a dual role as the Tourism Minister, it was made clear that the New Zealand tourism industry “is in good heart”.
International visitors to the country rose by 7.1% to $2.95 NZD million ($2.66 CAD million), and expenditure increased by 13% to $7.45 NZD billion ($6.72 CAD billion). From this, Canadians make up 49,984 of the visitors in the last year, which is up 3.5%, spend on average $4,300 NZD ($3,881 CAD) per visit and stay an average of 24.7 days.
An emphasis has been put on attracting the ‘premium traveller’ with the Prime Minister announcing, “More people are coming, staying longer and are spending more”. Niches such as active boomers, culinary tourism, winery tours, boutique hotels, golf tourism, and superyacht initiatives were all represented at the conference in an effort to attract tourists who will spend more in the country.
Tourism New Zealand also released its new marketing campaign, which includes new typography and a new campaign video. The focus on the campaign is showing the diversity of the country’s activities within a small commute.
The Government will support the campaign by investing $600 NZD million ($541 CAD million) in overseas marketing in both established markets (such as Canada) and emerging markets (India, Indonesia and Latin America).
Other news coming out of the conference is that Air New Zealand announced it will be flying out of Houston and Buenos Aires, along with the earlier announcement of increased flights out of Vancouver. The Tourism Industry Association New Zealand (TIA) has also forecasted that tourism revenue would double and full-time jobs will increase by 40% by 2025.
This forecast was part of the Tourism 2025 ‘framework’, which is an initiative from TIA to increase tourism revenue to $41 NZD billion ($37 CAD billion) in the next 10 years. They plan to do this by focussing on productivity, increasing flight connectivity, focussing on visitor experience, and targeting the most economical markets.
Current projections show that New Zealand is on track to reaching this goal. For more information about Tourism 2025, go to tourism2025.org.nz/.
TRENZ is scheduled to take place in Rotorua next year. For more information, see trenz.co.nz.
