NZ PM: Aussie market strong "but could do better"
New Zealand Prime Minister John Key has spoken of the strengths of the Australian market and warned against the risk of being “seduced” by the growth out of China.
Speaking to Travel Today at TRENZ in Auckland yesterday, the PM, who is also New Zealand’s tourism minister, said the demand in Australia for activity-based product represented the biggest opportunity for the NZ tourism industry.
Australians view NZ as they do Tasmania, such is the “convenience” and familiarity between the two nations, he suggested.
“Australia is a different from our long haul markets,” Key said during an interview with select international media, including Travel Today. “It has been a great market but it’s very tailored around particular activities.
“New Zealand is such an Australasian market. Every day of the week, New Zealanders fly to Australia for a business meeting or they go shopping for a weekend and it’s the same for Australians coming here.
"They fly Friday night and back Sunday evening. They see it as they might do Tasmania. It’s a slightly longer flight but not that much different. It’s convenient.”
NZ’s ski slopes are a particular draw, the PM said, while Aussies are also travelling to play golf and, increasingly, jetting across the Tasman to use the country’s growing network of cycleways, a NZ$100 million project which is nearing completion.
“Forward bookings for the ski season are apparently massive even before we start the marketing campaign,” Key said.
But while strong, the Australian market “can always do better”, he said, with the number of arrivals influenced by economic conditions.
“Generally speaking it’s a very good market, and it depends on what happens with the Australian economy. If things slow down then we might see more Australians coming to New Zealand because they may take slightly cheaper trips,” he said.
Meanwhile, Key warned that while China remained a growth market, a cautious approach was needed. He also threw his support behind new regulations which have clamped down on the sale of cheap, but shoddy tours.
“China is growing, but like everything in China, it’s very easy to be seduced by the numbers because they are all large,” the PM said. “They had 92 million travellers last year but when you cut it down 52 million of them went to HK so you’ve got to be cautious.
“But we do see a very significant increase in both the number and value of travellers from China. We have been very supportive of the change to travel tourism laws which we regard as consumer protection laws.
“A lot of people were coming to New Zealand on these cheap and cheerful trips. They were here for four days at best, saw limited amounts of NZ and their trip was engineered in such a way that they never got to a proper shop and paid three or four times as much for goods that weren’t necessarily made in NZ. All that did was damage New Zealand’s reputation.
“We’d far rather have less people coming for a better quality experience.”
Key said the Chinese traveller was also changing with a younger demographic leaning towards luxury product.
“We are quite confident about that market but we do need to think about how we are going to tailor the product and how we market that product.”
Email the Travel Weekly team at traveldesk@travelweekly.com.au
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