Registrations for Northland workshop speaks volumes for Chinese tourism market potential

The house-full signs are going up at a tourism workshop in Waitangi on Friday June 3 as Northland does its part to ensure Chinese visitors continue to be made to feel welcome to New Zealand.

More than 100 tourism operators and interested parties have jumped at the chance to attend a four-hour workshop on Chinese Free and Independent Tourists (FITs) to be held in Waitangi, run by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE).

“The level of interest shown in this workshop underlines the importance of the Chinese tourism market to Northland and New Zealand,” says Northland Inc, Regional Promotions and Tourism, General Manager Paul Davis.

“This is one of a series of workshops being held around the country, and Northland has achieved one of the country’s highest workshop registration rates. There is clearly huge interest within the Northland tourism sector in tapping into the Chinese visitor market, and in ensuring businesses here provide quality experiences tailored to meet the needs of Chinese visitors.”

Paul says this will help businesses in Northland to better understand the Chinese visitor market and will allow them to make the most of the increasing numbers that are forecast to visit New Zealand.

“As far as Northland is concerned we are well aware just how important these visitors are to our tourism industry with 330,000 Chinese visiting New Zealand last year thanks to our clean green reputation, innovative tourism experiences, abundance of quality food and wine produce and our cultural appeal,” he says.

“China is a very important market for our tourism industry with MBIE’s tourism forecasts for 2016 to 2022 predicting that China will become New Zealand’s largest market in terms of expenditure by 2017.

“While at the moment Chinese visitation to Northland is relatively small, there is huge potential for our region to expand and capture a larger slice of the market, especially in the shoulder seasons.

“That is why it is great that we have so much interest in this Chinese FIT workshop which will address topics such as: why Chinese visitors find Northland’s ordinary their extraordinary; why all Chinese FITs are not the same, implications for Northland businesses; the importance of telling Chinese FITs what Northland offers and why they should choose Northland; and effective digital marketing strategies for connecting with Chinese FITs.”

“Armed with new knowledge after the seminar, we expect Northland tourism businesses to more actively market and promote to the Chinese visitor market”.

ENDS

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