The tourism agency of New Zealand announced strategies for increasing the number of Chinese tourists who visit New Zealand. Similarly, the agency also formulated policies and targets that would be put in place to ensure prolonged stay of the Chinese tourists.
According to Tony Evitt, New Zealand's Tourism General Manager for Asian markets, the agency aims to raise the proportion of ''premium'' Approved Destination Status (ADS) Chinese visitors from 12% to 30% of the overall Approved Destination Status visitors by 2016.
A statement by Everitt confirmed that majority of the Chinese visitors who land in New Zealand will only spend up to three days at most. Furthermore, most of them do not come to New Zealand as their specific point but they only stay there while in the process of visiting other destinations like Australia.
Lately however, there have been signs of improvement in the numbers of Chinese visitors who come specifically to New Zealand. This is portrayed by longer periods of time they spend there, increased number of destinations they visit and their spending power in New Zealand.
The emergence of China as New Zealand's second-largest source of annual arrivals began in November the previous year. That year, up to 195,000 Chinese visited New Zealand representing a whooping increase of 38%. Chinese visits to New Zealand have been steadily increasing since 1999 when New Zealand gained ADS. Initially, the visitors from the United States and Great Britain were the leading groups spending holidays in New Zealand.
Everitt also confirmed that China is a reliable market for New Zealand's tourism industry. It is where New Zealand will obtain a lot of benefits and rewards from. On the other hand, the general manger pointed out some of the blow backs that are being faced in trying to attract more Chinese visitors. He argued that prolonging the stay of the visitors, offering them plenty of activities to engage in and improving the quality of their experiences are the primary issues that need to be implemented.
In order to increase the number of visitors from China, the following measures have been put in place:
The Premium Kiwi Partnership (PKP) program that has been initiated by Tourism New Zealand is meant to target the Chinese travelers who are most likely to spend more in New Zealand. This program is expected to generate more in terms of value to New Zealand from those who will spend more time and money.
New Zealand's government through Tourism New Zealand has taken the initiative to promote longer-stay and higher-quality itineraries. To achieve this, it is working with twelve selected inbound tour operators and eighteen China-based travel sellers to develop and market innovative packages that will promote longer stays in New Zealand.
