Government trumpets extra $4.9m to aid tourism

By SIMON HENDERY tourism writer

Tourism Minister Mark Burton used the industry's biggest sales fest as a backdrop to announce $4.9 million extra in tourism funding.

The Government has earmarked $4 million in Thursday's Budget to pay for the tourism plan it unveiled last week.

Speaking at the Tourism Rendezvous New Zealand (Trenz) trade show in Christchurch yesterday, Mr Burton said an extra $600,000 would also be spent on tourism research and $338,000 more would go towards supporting five Maori regional tourism organisations.

About 400 international tourist companies are in New Zealand for the four-day Trenz expo, which has also attracted about 1000 New Zealand tourism operators. The expo is expected to generate more than $1 billion of business.

Meanwhile, a survey has found that tourism operators are optimistic about their future, but believe New Zealand needs to improve its reputation for service.

The Tourism Industry Association industry confidence survey, prepared by Ernst & Young, found that 71 per cent of operators expected improved profitability over the next six months.

The 13 per cent who expected to make less money cited concerns about service standards and seasonal fluctuations which affected their businesses.

Association chief executive John Moriarty said the survey's findings mirrored issues raised in the tourism strategy issued by the Government last week.

"The challenge is for the industry to develop solutions to these and other areas of concern, using the tourism strategy as a guide, and then implement those solutions," Mr Moriarty said.

The $700,000 strategy recommends a shakeup of tourism bureaucracy which it says could almost treble overseas traveller revenue in nine years - from $4.2 billion last year to $12 billion in 2010.

Government officials are studying the strategy and are due to report to Mr Burton by mid-July.

The confidence survey found operators believed that although New Zealand's key UK, Australia and North American tourist markets would remain strong, 28 per cent expected visitor numbers from Japan to drop in coming months.

Mr Moriarty said Japanese visitors remained the top individual spenders while in New Zealand and continued to travel a lot, despite concerns about their country's economy.

Last year, 151,000 Japanese visited New Zealand, spending an average of more than $5000 each.

"There is still plenty of opportunity for it [the Japanese market] to grow, even under current circumstances."

* Simon Hendery travelled to Trenz as a guest of the Tourism Industry Association.