Where is te Wahipounamu? This NZ wonder is one of the most difficult to locate. Photo / Sebastian Goldberg, Nick Seagrave; Unsplash
Where is te Wahipounamu? This NZ wonder is one of the most difficult to locate. Photo / Sebastian Goldberg, Nick Seagrave; Unsplash
It’s been described as the jewel in the crown of New Zealand tourism, the “Eighth Wonder of the World” but, for the life of them, tourists can’t pinpoint Milford Sound on a map.
A survey of more than 250 hotel-goers were asked to locate 50 tourism landmarks.
Conducted by UK accommodation chain PremierInn, it showed that some famous destinations remained a mystery to the majority of tourists.
The Eiffel Tower stuck out like a sore thumb, with 93 per cent of tourists being able to point to within 500km of the Paris landmark.
The Eiffel Tower was found with Pinpoint accuracy by over 90 per cent of respondents. Photo / PremierInn
Less than 7 per cent were able to find Fiordland National Park. New Zealand’s largest Unesco World Heritage Park left many travellers scratching their heads, despite being home to an attraction that draws almost one million visitors a year.
Compared to the Colosseum in Rome - which was found by 85.7 per cent correct answers - it was a mystery.
Yellowstone National Park was the easiest found natural attraction, with four-fifths being able to pinpoint the park. However, some of the 19 per cent who guessed wrong were as far afield as Australia and Uganda.
The location of Iguazu Falls, on the border of Argentina, was a mystery, with guesses scattered across seven continents. Photo / PremierInn
It appears that parks and the natural world were a lot harder to identify than cultural landmarks.
“Our study also revealed an intriguing trend: manmade landmarks are significantly easier to locate on a map for most compared to their natural counterparts,” said the hoteliers.
Guesses at the location of cultural landmarks and buildings twice as likely to be correct than waterfalls and coral reefs - 60 per cent to 35 per cent.
The second most difficult-to-find destination was Madagascar’s instantly recognisable Avenue of the Baobabs. The photogenic bottle trees were found by just 8 per cent of respondents.
Similarly, Indonesia’s Komodo Dragons might be one of the country’s biggest tourist draws, but only 9 per cent of respondents could find Komodo Island. It was tied with Colombia’s rainbow pools, at the Caño Cristales, for the third most difficult tourist attraction to locate.
In spite - or perhaps because - its difficulty to locate, Milford Sound was recently named one of the world’s most Googled landmarks. The Wikipedia page for the “world wonder” inspired more than 844,858 page views since it was published - the most for any landmark in New Zealand.
Milford Opportunities Project
The difficulty some have in working out where it is has not stopped more than 800,000 visitors a year visiting Fiordland National Park, and majority come from overseas.
The project overseen by the ministers of Conservation, Tourism and Transport alongside Ngāi Tahu, is due to conclude its research stage this year.
Eglinton Flats on State Highway 94 on the way to Milford Sound. Photo / Thomas Bywater
Current investigations are looking at banning aircraft and stopping cruise ships from entering the inner sound as well as testing a day-tripper tax for international tourists and reducing the number of vehicles on State Highway 94.
