Tourists wanted in Marlborough
Tourism funding for Marlborough will be used to attract tourists from further up the country, offsetting a slump in Cantabrian visitors post-quake.
A new $150,000 government grant will be used on a campaign targeting the lower North Island, Wellington, Auckland, as well as Nelson and Tasman.
Marlborough is failing to attract its usual number of visitors from Canterbury, generally its largest source of tourists, after the 7.8-magnitude earthquake last November closed State Highway 1.
Destination Marlborough general manager Tracy Johnston said she was launching a drive to attract people from other areas, from Easter onwards.
‘‘Now that we have the funding secured, we are going into campaign execution mode,’’ she said.
The promotion strategy would use the organisation’s current message, ‘‘Marlborough - Brilliant every day’’.
Input from Marlborough businesses would help shape part of the campaign, and talks with tourism operators would start straight away, Johnston said.
She could not give any more details of the campaign plan at this stage.
The $150,000 grant was part of a $870,000 grant for the Top of the South announced by Tourism Minister Paula Bennett on Monday, with $650,000 going to Kaikoura.
A domestic tourism promotion strategy for Marlborough was in the pipeline before the funding was announced, but the $150,000 would let Destination Marlborough do much more, Johnston said.
‘‘It’s going to be on a larger scale than we would have been able to achieve under our own resource.’’
The visitor spend from Canterbury was still high, but was significantly down after the November 14 earthquake; $68 million for the year ending in January, compared to $74m for the year ending in October.
Most of the Marlborough tourism operators Johnston had spoken to were still having a busy summer season, but they had noticed a drop in Christchurch and Canterbury customers, which was concerning, Johnston said.
Domestic tourists, from across New Zealand, made up two thirds of Marlborough’s visitor economy.
Omaka Aviation Heritage Centre director Jane Orphan said the quake had coincided with the opening of the cen- tre’s new exhibition.
She was confident the centre would have attracted more customers from Canterbury if SH1 had been open.
‘‘We haven’t had a loss but we don’t know how much the income would have been.
‘‘We really welcome the initiative by Destination Marlborough to help all of Marlborough to increase [visitor numbers].’’
The funding would also help bring in more international visitors for the 2017 and 2018 peak season in Kaikoura, and $70,000 was going towards promoting Top of the South touring routes to the international travel market.