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Air New Zealand is set to grow inbound tourism traffic following the NZ government’s decision to invest an incremental NZ$158 million over the next four years to grow tourism to New Zealand.
Chief Executive Officer Christopher Luxon said: “This is a significant investment in growing tourism export earnings to New Zealand, which will have very positive impacts in terms of employment and visitor expenditure, throughout the country.
“A third of all international visitors flying into New Zealand arrive on Air New Zealand. Air New Zealand’s new “Go Beyond” strategy is focused on market development and growth in the Pacific Rim and this investment will enable the industry to convert the opportunities that exist with potential high value visitors and the emerging markets of the Pacific Rim,” Luxon added.
Air New Zealand already works in close partnership with Tourism New Zealand to promote tourism to New Zealand, most recently in highly successful activity to promote New Zealand as the filming location for the Hobbit movies.
“We have seen online sales increase in several markets as a result of Air New Zealand’s and Tourism New Zealand’s marketing activity around the movie.
“We have seen growing demand for travel to New Zealand and following the announcement today of incremental funding for tourism, we will work to identify how Air New Zealand can actively support the Government’s investments through our partnership marketing activity with Tourism New Zealand over the coming four years.”
Tourism is New Zealand’s second largest export earner, after the dairy industry, generating NZ$9.6 billion in export earnings (in the year to March 2012). More than 2.5 million international visitors arrived in New Zealand in the year ended February 2013.
