Big push on for tourism

New Zealand tourism's biggest event, Trenz 2009, opened late yesterday with companies flowing into Auckland to showcase their products to wholesalers from important markets such as Australia and China.

Tourism is worth $50 million a day to New Zealand. The companies will use 15-minute promotion slots during the four-day trade show to hard-sell their products to foreign travel agents flying in for the event.

Tourism Industry Association chief executive Tim Cossar said the Trenz event was critical for the industry to keep its voice heard during the global downturn.

"Tourism is a fundamental contributor to New Zealand's economy and way of life. It supports the jobs of one in 10 New Zealanders," Cossar said.

He will brief media and industry members during the trade show, alongside Tourism New Zealand chief executive George Hickton.

Prime Minister and Tourism Minister John Key would to talk to the audience on Thursday with a significant government announcement expected.

About 1200 people each day will be at Trenz 2009, hosted at the ASB showgrounds and other Auckland locations.

New Zealand's clean, green image, and the fact that it was a relatively youthful country in terms of the human imprint, still held sway with visitors from around the world, Hickton said.

"The fact that 30 per cent of the country has been protected and cannot be built on ... and then there's a whole pile of stories and aspects of New Zealand we see as reinforcing the positioning.

"You can even look at the adventure tourism industry and bungy jumping and stuff like that. That comes from the whole idea our experiences are in the landscape but they're also quite exciting and quite young and fresh."

During the last 10 years tourism in New Zealand had grown 50 per cent, outperforming Australia and other countries, he said. "We've also had other things in our favour, like ... so we've had extraordinary growth by tourism standards but you've got to say there's been a bit of a tail wind."

The future for mum-and-dad operators who became involved during the growth spurt of the early 2000s should be relatively positive, he said.

"I don't see why we won't have any growth in tourism. Not in the current year, we know that, but the New Zealand tourism offering has a high satisfaction rating, it is in line with world tourism demand. And there is enough of the world that hasn't travelled here yet to give us a very sound market from now on."

The announcement during Trenz was probably not around the funding issue, he said.

- © Fairfax NZ News