TRENZ 2012 May 7-10 ■ Queenstown Events Centre ■ New Zealand EARTHQUAKE RECOVERY Queenstown
Christchurch is back in business
REPORT CONFERENCE
■THE EVENT: Trenz (Tourism Rendezvous New Zealand), managed by the Tourism Industry Association New Zealand (TIA) ■ATTENDEES: More than 1,000 delegates, including 308 international travel buyers, 17 from the UK, and 270 exhibitors ■KEY THEMES: Attracting new Asian markets, Christchurch’s recovery, the impact of the Rugby World Cup, future marketing efforts ■CONCLUSION: It will be business as usual by the end of 2012 but the government is concerned that Air Passenger Duty is hampering efforts to increase visitor numbers from the UK
APD ‘pressure’ on New Zealand Wendy Gomersall
NEW ZEALAND’S prime minister has warned the UK that rising Air Passenger Duty is putting “pressure” on holidaymakers and contributing to falling UK arrivals in the country.
Prime Minister John Key, who is also the country’s tourism minister, added that the decline in UK visitors was largely attributed to the state of the economy, but said
taxation was not helping. The country received 222,152 UK
visitors in the year ending March 2012, a 1% growth on paper but a drop when factoring in the Rugby World Cup. “We want you to come back,” said
Key. “UK tourists are great, they come for long periods of time, they spend lots of money, they travel around. “But the one concern is your
departure tax because it’s putting a lot of pressure on outward
bound tourists, they’re paying very large sums now and we think it’s discriminatory to New Zealand. “I’m having dinner with UK prime minister David Cameron in a couple of weeks and will be raising the issue again.”
In the immediate future, Kevin
Bowler, chief executive of Tourism New Zealand, told Trenz the country will prioritise growing tourism from Australia, the US and, in particular, China, which had 160,000 visitors last year, up 23%. However, the UK remains the
key market after Australia. Despite the fall in overall visitor
numbers from the UK, some tour operators said they had seen a rise in business to New Zealand. “New Zealand is actually up for us
Bowler: New Zealand will focus on tourism from Australia, the US and China 12
24.05.2012
by around 50% year-on-year at the moment, largely I suspect due to last year’s earthquake which dampened sales to New Zealand this time last year,” said Aaron Jennings, product manager – Australasia & The South Pacific with Cox & Kings.
HOBBIT TO HELP TOURISM Slogan “100% Middle-Earth, 100% Pure New Zealand” was revealed at Trenz, reflecting a collaboration between Tourism New Zealand and The Hobbit film being made in the country.
IT’S ALMOST business as usual in Christchurch, with British tourists among the first to go back after last year’s devastating earthquake. “By the end of 2012 our red zone, which was the cordoned-off area of the central city, will have vanished,” said Christchurch & Canterbury Tourism chief executive Tim Hunter at Trenz. “The difficult issue for us is having 40% fewer beds, but we still have 9,000 commercial beds in the area and we are coping well,” he added. Bruce Garrett, regional chair of the
Tourism Industry Association, said seven hotels in the business district will be reopened by the end of 2014, bringing capacity to around 2,174, at least 60% of the pre-quake figure.
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