Louise Upston: Tourism Minister on the tourism campaign targeting Australian visitors

More Aussies are hopping over the ditch following a tourism campaign.  

Since the 'Everyone Must Go' campaign, almost eight thousand extra Australian visitors have come to New Zealand.  

It's estimated those tourists spent about $22 million.  

Tourism Minister Louise Upston told Mike Hosking there's plenty more room for growth. 

She says about four million Australians are considering a trip, so we need to get in their face more.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Some made fun of it, but the Everybody must Go
tourism campaign appears to have hit the mark. The plan
was to target Australians. We wanted six thousand, seven hundred
and fifty extra arrivals. Did we get them, Yes, we did,
and then some We got seven nine hundred and eighty one.
And while they were here they spent another twenty two
million dollars. Louise Upston is of course the Tourism Minister
and is with us very.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Good morning, Good morning Mike.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
So the ad Agency will be happy apart from anyone else,
won't they.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well, it's great for New Zealand because tourism is a
big part of our plan to grow the economy and
we act with urgency and Australia delivered. They came one
over in great numbers.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
Yes, they did well. Well, when you say great numbers,
we're a three million plus market annually, so sixty seven
hundred is hardly shifting the needle. But what sort of
potential does Australia still have as a market.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Yeah, so what we know is there's Australia is the
market that is the closest to us, our biggest mark,
and we know they make their decisions quickly, so that's
why we targeted Australia in this first campaign. Listen, we're
still only at eighty seven percent of the visitor numbers
from what we had pre COVID and that's why Australia

(01:06):
tends to and will continue to be a focus for
us in the short term. Of course, every Australian that
comes over, stays in our accommodation, eats in a restaurant,
shops in our shops is great for our economy and
that's why we're so focused on tourism as a growth boost.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
What's your vibe given your experience so far, as Minister
is as simple as I mean, it's not like we're
we're they don't know we're here. So is it just
simply just get in front of them and go, hey,
remember New Zealand and something will happen.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yeah, we know that there's four million Australians who are
considering a visit to New Zealand. We just have to
convert them. So it's actually being far more in their
face and putting the material in front of them, putting
the deals, which this Australia campaign was really really positive
because there were over eight hundred deals that New Zealand businesses, airlines, hotels,

(01:58):
activities put on the table and that was part of
the incentive to get the Australian tourists to say, yes,
I'm booking now, I'm coming over.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
Can you offer me anything more positive on the biggest
side of the equation because we're still a note stuck
in the eighties in terms of percentage of where we
once were.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
Well, that's why we've just we're very deliberately working on
our big markets Australia, the States, in China. There's a
lot of potential in China because the numbers are still
only at sixty one percent of what we had pre COVID,
So we've got a range of campaigns underway. The Prime
Minister's visit to China was really important. We just need
those countries to know that New Zealand's open for business

(02:40):
and we actually welcome them. We want them to come,
We're ready for them to come and they'll have a
great experience when they're here, and we just need to
keep repeating that message to them.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
Good stuff, Louis, appreciate it. Louis Upston Tourism Minister for
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