New Zealand tourism promotion boost to focus on new markets

New Zealand Prime Minister and Tourism Minister John Key on Sunday released details of Budget initiatives for tourism, including 44.5 million NZ dollars (37.4 million U.S. dollars) to attract visitors from emerging markets and 24.5 million NZ dollars to enhance existing markets.

As part of a larger internationally-focused growth package, the New Zealand government is investing an additional 158 million NZ dollars in tourism through Budget 2013 to attract more visitors to New Zealand, particularly high-spending visitors.

"Attracting more tourists from growing markets such as India, Indonesia and Latin America is a key part of the Government's strategy for tourism. These countries have strong economic growth and increasing numbers of people who have the desire and ability to travel," said Key at a press conference in Auckland on Sunday.

The announcement coincides with this year's Tourism Rendezvous New Zealand, or Trenz, conference in Auckland, where hundreds of local tourism businesses are trying to generate more trade.

Meanwhile, 24.5 million NZ dollars will be spent targeting high- value visitors from existing markets, including Australia, the United States, Britain, Germany, Japan and China.

"This will include focusing on the recovery of the Japanese market and extending the Premier Kiwi Partnership Program, which works with Chinese agents to improve the quality of visitors' holidays to New Zealand," he added.

New Zealand Immigration Minister Michael Woodhouse also announced an extra 5 million NZ dollars of funding over the next four years for Immigration NZ to supply visa application information in languages other than English, starting with the Chinese market.

The agency will also get a further 2 million NZ dollars to work with airports and airlines to better facilitate the visa process.

Tourism generates about 9.6 billion NZ dollars a year for the New Zealand economy, or about 3.3 percent of its gross domestic product.