Not just an add-on destination

India is high on New Zealand’s tourism map. Offering better visa facilities, focussing on MICE and keeping travel agents at the centre of their marketing plans, are some of the steps to increase inflow of Indian tourists.

Tourism

is a very important aspect of New Zealand’s financial budget this year and the country is investing $44.5 million to attract visitors from emerging growth markets and $24.5 million to boost tourism from existing markets.

“Attracting more tourists from growing markets such as India, Indonesia and Latin America is a key part of the Government’s strategy for tourism. These countries have strong economic growth and a big number of people with huge spending power to travel,” says John Key, Prime lining is that Air New Zealand is acquiring Dreamliner aircraft, the only aircraft capable of flying this route.

Kevin Bowler, Chief Executive, Tourism New Zealand, also stresses on the huge potential in India, “We will focus on marketing the destination among the trade through the Kiwi specialist programmeroadshows, trade and media fams. We are very excited about co-hosting the 2015 Cricket World Cup with Australia and are trying to host one Indian game also.” focus both on the trade and consumer.”

At present, most of the travellers use New Zealand as an add- on destination with Australia but the country has Auckland, will allow us to host more, and significantly larger conferences,” says Key. Adding to this, Bowler says, “Till now, we have hosted only mediumsized conferences

Our new convention centres in Christchurch and Queenstown, and the proposed Conference Centre in Auckland, will allow us to host more conferences We are very excited about co-hosting the 2015 Cricket World Cup with Australia and are also trying to host

one Indian game

much more to offer. It is an all land accessible driving destination, easy to move around and distances are relatively much shorter.

“Visitor numbers from India have been steadily growing, with almost 30,000 visitors in 2012. Indian tourists tend to visit from April to June, making them an important source of visitors during our autumn season,” adds Key.

Along with leisure, New Zealand is also focussing on MICE tourism. “We will spend $34 million in the next four years to significantly expand our focus on international business events, including conferences, conventions and exhibitions. Our new convention centres in Christchurch and Queenstown, and the proposed New Zealand International Conference

Centre in and incentives mainly in Auckland, Queensland & Christchurch but we will now concentrate on increasing the MICE traffic into the country as we have many interesting venues to offer.”

Discussing their shortterm prospects, Bowler adds, “Now our focus for the next three years will be to grow the portfolio of the markets and marketing activities on clearly defined higher value visitors.

Key also has high hopes pinned on the tourism industry, stating, “Tourism in the next five years will be significantly large because of the international trends. Pointto-point connectivity with long range aircraft will encourage travel. Low cost airlines are making the travel more affordable for a much broader audience. And lastly, Asia is fast growing. It is getting much wealthier which is directly reflecting the number of people travelling. A combination of this will make travel, easy to go, more affordable and drive people

to New Zealand.”