Louise Upston: Tourism Minister on the Government's plan to pump extra money into the tourism sector

The Tourism Minister says hitting more markets will pay off in the long-term. 

The Government has pumped $13.5 million into Tourism New Zealand for marketing the country as a holiday destination. 

Louise Upston says efforts this year to promote to the Australian market are already paying off. 

She says there's room for growth. 

"We're only at 86 percent of the number of visitors we had back in 2019 - so there's lots of capacity."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Governments announced it's pumping thirteen and a half million dollars
into a global marketing campaign to attract more tourists into
the country. The Tourism minister Louise upstairs with me, Louise, Hello, Hello,
welcome back, Oh mate, thank you very much, good to
chat to you again. Are you worried just before we
get into this money that you're pumping into the marketing campaign,
you worried about those numbers that came out today showing

(00:20):
a drop off in Chinese tourists in February.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well, we do know that the China numbers are down.
They're down at sixty percent of the twenty nineteen numbers,
which is why we need to do some focused campaigns
to bring the China market back. But look, we've also
seen really positive numbers from India and a record month
for visitors out of the United States, so you know,
there's some very positive signs there. But this campaign, this

(00:46):
additional marketing money, will mean that we can have specific
campaigns into different countries looking at whether we're like China,
trying to bring the numbers back. India is an emerging
market and we need to focus our marketing efforts a
bit more in a bit more tailored way.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
Is that enough money to actually move the market.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Oh? Absolutely, Look, we know and a big part of
what we've seen with the encouraging signs out of the
Australia campaign is working with industry really closely. When we
work on things together, we can rarely move the dial.
And look, we're only at eighty six percent of the
number of visitors we had back in twenty nineteen, so

(01:27):
there's lots of capacity and so we want to have
more visitors come in. That's more business for the hospitality sector,
but also shops, supermarkets, petrol stations, you name it, and
we've got capacity and so we just want to let
the world know we're open for business.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
Yeah, fair enough, Okay, Louis listen, Thank you very much,
really appreciated. This is Louise Upston, Tourism Ministry.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
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