Queenstown’s bumper winter

Monday, 14 September 2009, 9:27 am
Press Release: Destination Queenstown

Queenstown’s bumper winter

The stats are in and it’s a fact – Queenstown has had a bumper winter with guest arrivals up more than seven per cent and total guests nights up 12 per cent in July compared to the same period last year.

Latest figures from Statistics New Zealand’s Commercial Accommodation Monitor (CAM) show July was a busy time for the resort with an extra 28,000 nights recorded during that month.

Destination Queenstown General Manager Marketing Graham Budd said the results are fantastic and clearly show more people have come to the resort and stayed longer on average this winter.

“The increase is testament to the strength of the Queenstown ski and winter holiday proposition,” he said.

“Up until this point we’ve only been able to comment anecdotally on the success of the winter campaigns, however, the data now shows how successful DQ and the industry have been in marketing Queenstown both domestically and into Australia.”

According to the CAM, guest arrivals for the rest of NZ are up 3.5 per cent and total guests night up 2.2 per cent, and Queenstown contributes to 40 per cent of this growth.

The Queenstown Lakes/Central Otago region as a whole have also showed an increase, with 12.9 per cent in domestic visitors and a 9.8 per cent increase of international visitors compared to July last year.

“This result highlights the importance of Queenstown and the Southern Lakes region to the overall NZ tourism arrival numbers this winter,” said Mr Budd.

“The statistics show Australian visitor arrivals were up 20 per cent and while we can’t break down that data by region, it’s very clear that the significant proportion of Queenstown’s international visitor growth has come from Australia.”

DQ is now hoping to keep the momentum going and attract more Australians to the resort this summer to help try and buoy a potential drop off in visitor numbers from the longer haul markets.

DQ will roll out its first summer campaign into Australia in the next few weeks leveraging off Tourism NZ’s marketing as well as continuing to bolster the domestic seasonal campaigns.

ENDS

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