New Zealand’s profile soars in India

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New Zealand’s profile soars in India

One of India’s most famous Bollywood actresses and the exploits of India’s cricketing superstars have helped to push New Zealand’s profile sky-high over the last few weeks.

The combination of two of India’s favourite obsessions, cricket and Bollywood superstars, has resulted in leading stories in many major media outlets and huge exposure for New Zealand.

Preity Zinta, a beautiful Bollywood superstar, and the Indian cricket team have been enjoying New Zealand’s tourism experiences watched by the 40-strong media contingent from India following the team during the New Zealand tour.

During her visit, Tourism New Zealand arranged a day for Ms Zinta in Taupo doing a bungy jump, sky dive and jet boating. Her adrenalin activities and comments were picked up by media from the Guardian in Britain to The Times of India.

“Preity Zinta is top Bollywood actress who is enormously famous. To have her visit New Zealand was a huge boost to New Zealand’s profile,” says Kiran Nambiar, Tourism New Zealand’s manager in India.

“It’s brilliant timing for this level of media interest, as many Indians are currently thinking about where to book their holiday,” Mr Nambiar added.

There were 23,861 Indian visitors to New Zealand in the year ended January 2009, an increase of 7.3 percent.

Tourism Auckland’s invitation to Indian cricket skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni to do a bungy jump off the Auckland Bridge was also picked up by hundreds, if not thousands of Indian media outlets, even though he was not able to do the jump.

Tourism New Zealand is also hosting four media outlets following the cricket tour. A further five or six media are being assisted through Tourism New Zealand’s Explore New Zealand programme.

Tourism New Zealand is working with Indian journalists whose coverage of the tour extends beyond just cricket and will provide maximum media coverage about New Zealand as a holiday destination.

Tourism New Zealand is also hosting the Indian team for a day of tourism activities around the Auckland region. This is intended to create some more 'talkability' around famous sports stars back in India.

A high-level group of Indian travel agents were also hosted by Tourism New Zealand during the early stages of the cricket tour.

Ms Zinta, who The Times of India tagged the ‘Dimpled Dazzler’ raved about New Zealand when she returned home, saying she had a ball in the country: “I love adventure sports. And I love New Zealand.”

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