Louise Upston: Tourism Minister on new campaign encouraging Australian tourists

The government has announced a new campaign for encouraging Australian's to come here for their next holiday.

The campaign is being funded through the International Visitor Levy, costing $500,000, and will be followed by further campaigns targeting other places. 

Marketing for the campaign, 'Everyone must go,' will go live across the ditch next week. 

Tourism Minister Louise Upston joins the show. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So the governments announced a new campaign for encouraging Aussies
to come here for the next holiday. The campaign is
called Everyone Must Come. No, so I got that wrong.
Everyone must go. Everyone must Go because it's aimed at
the Aussies. Everyone must Go. It's costing US half a
million dollars. It will be followed by more campaigns targeting
other places. Tourism Minister Louise ups And announced the marketing

(00:21):
will go live across the Ditch next week. She announced
us yesterday. She's with me now, Hello.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Louise, good morning to you. How are you very good?

Speaker 1 (00:28):
So how effective do you think this could be?

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Well, this is the first of several tourism boost announcements
that we're planning over the coming weeks. And the important
part with this is it's very much supported by industry.
So what we will see is accommodation providers, airlines who
are supporting this push to get Aussie's to come over
and visit with their own deals. So it means that

(00:54):
every dollar of taxpayers ben goes that much further.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
The question I had and I raised earlier this morning,
is why haven't we been doing this since the beginning
of time? I mean they're right there. It's cheap for
them to come here, it's easy for them to talk
and commute and to get around. They've got friends here.
This is something we should have been doing forever.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Yes, So Tourism New Zealand are already doing campaigns into Australia.
They've got an autumn campaign that's underway at the moment.
This is on top of so we wanted a short,
sharp injection to make sure that Australians know that they
can come over straight away. We wanted some urgency in
it and a fresh campaign to really work with the

(01:36):
industry on. So this is in addition to what Tourism
New Zealand is already doing into Australia.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
I see that in Australia we're already their number one destination.
There was a piece on the news actually last week
saying we're number one for Australians leaving and coming here.
So is there more upside that we can get?

Speaker 2 (01:55):
Yes? Absolutely so. If you look at our twenty nineteen numbers,
we're only sitting at eighty eight percent of that. This
short boost we're aiming to bring another five thousand visitors in,
which would take us up to ninety three percent, so
there's still lots of potential. You know, we're a long
way off where we were in twenty nineteen, so job
number one is getting those numbers back. And you're right,

(02:18):
Australians can make their decision quickly and hop over the pitch.
So this campaign is all about saying we're open for business.
We welcome you with open arms, so get on, make
the decision and come over very good.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
Any any other sovereignties that you wanted to do a
campaign man this in any other places.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
Well there we are other parts of the Tourism Boost campaign,
but if you look at other big markets, obviously China
numbers are down at sixty percent of where they were
in twenty nineteen, which is concerning, and there's emerging markets
like India, so we will be making sure that we
have campaigns into existing markets to get numbers back to

(02:59):
where they were nineteen, as well as some other parts
of our Tourism Boost campaign which will be coming out
in the next few weeks.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
Okay, we wish you only success with that one and
putting your other hat on there. You were on the
Telly last night as well twice a recent one News
vary in poll found forty six percent of New Zealand
has thought the issue of homelessness was getting worse. And
you're the minister in charge of worrying about that sort
of thing, are they wrong?

Speaker 2 (03:24):
Lock Homelessness has been a challenge for many, many years,
and so it is something that people worry about. What
I'm incredibly proud of Minister Pautucke and Minister Bishop and
I have had a real focus on emergency housing and
getting children out of living in motels. Nineteen hundred fewer
children living in motels than and we're a year ago.

(03:46):
So we have taken a real focus to this issue,
focusing first and foremost children, and the number of people
living in emergency housing now is significantly below where it was.
We've all seen five thousand fewer people on the Social
Housing Register. So while there's always more work to do,

(04:08):
we have made some incredible inroads into some of these
long standing housing challenges.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
Louise Upsin, Minister for Social Development and Minister for Tourism.
Two portfolios, two parts that interview, Thank you so much
for your time. News Talks He'd be for more from
early edition with Ryan Bridge.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
Listen live to News Talks it b from five am weekdays,
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