Kiwis, Aussies differ over Anzac pilgrimage

New Zealanders and Australians who join the pilgrimage to Gallipoli for Anzac Day have different motivations, researchers say.

Academics at Auckland University of Technology (AUT) and Turkey's Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University surveyed 400 people at last year's Anzac Day services in Gallipoli about their reasons for making the journey.

Five motives for travelling were identified as nationalism, spiritualism, family pilgrimage, friendship and travel.

For Australians, the pilgrimage was about national identity and patriotism, whereas for New Zealanders, it was about remembering the dead, AUT senior research lecturer Ken Hyde said.

World War I had an enormous impact on New Zealand society, with half of the country's age-eligible men sent to war and thousands killed, Dr Hyde said.

Every town in New Zealand had evidence of the impact, in war memorials built at great cost to each community.

- NZPA