Dunedin's thousands of international students are an untapped resource for boosting tourism and are likely to be targeted by those in the industry.
The great potential to capitalise on foreigners studying in New Zealand was highlighted yesterday at Trenz, the country's largest tourism trade showcase, by guest speaker Dr Pawel Grochowicz.
An international business change and growth professional, Dr Grochowicz said New Zealand was missing an opportunity to capture the many parents, friends and family members of international students as valuable visitors.
He cited the 30,000 annual Chinese tertiary students in New Zealand, whose parents were wealthy enough to send them abroad and who were likely to visit their children in New Zealand once or twice a year.
''That means you've got 60,000 high-end worth individuals coming here twice a year. Where are they and how are we accessing them?''
Dr Grochowicz said small changes linking tourism and education could make a big difference to the visitor economy, such as graduation ceremonies being scheduled closer to the actual end of study.
Parents of international students would attend graduation ceremonies while their children were in New Zealand, but many graduations occurred months after students had returned home, he said.
''I think we are beginning to recognise that there's an opportunity there. But we are not yet as effective as we could be in connecting tourism and education, in the way we access the market and in the way we treat international students and their wealthy parents.''
It was also important to maintain a relationship with students after they left New Zealand, so they would return for holidays and recommend the country as a holiday or study destination to others, Dr Grochowicz said.
''A lot of them will go home, have a career and be successful managers of large businesses with lots of staff. We need to ensure they look to New Zealand for business and personal travel. There's certainly plenty of opportunity there.''
Tourism Dunedin chief executive Hamish Saxton said it was a good time to start developing initiatives linking education and tourism in the South.
At present, there were no specific programmes catering to the parents and associates of international students in Dunedin.
''The opportunity is for us to work with the university, polytechnic and high schools to develop holiday suggestions and itineraries for parents to consider when they come here, and the itineraries may in fact give parents an incentive to come over.''
There was further benefit in encouraging parents and friends of students to visit during Dunedin's ''shoulder seasons'', he said.
Graduations were a chance for students to return to New Zealand with their parents, for a second or third visit.
In addition, all who studied in Dunedin became ambassadors for the city in their home countries and played a key role in its promotion worldwide.
''It has to be good for the city, and has significant mileage which needs to be collectively built on. The time is right for us to be considering all of these options and to progress them further,'' Mr Saxton said.
University of Otago pro-vice-chancellor (international) Prof Sarah Todd said there were no specific initiatives to encourage family and friends to visit international students in Dunedin, but a ''significant number'' did so anyway, particularly around graduation.
''A number of past students also become tourists in their own right when they travel back here to visit post-study, often bringing partners, friends and family with them.''
Prof Todd said the university worked with Tourism Dunedin on some education-related issues, through which recruitment agents visited the city.
''We recognise the interdependence between export education and tourism, particularly for a region such as ours.''
The university had about 2600 international students, following a slight decrease last year from the 2011 record high of 2798.
Otago also had the third-highest percentage of international students and earned the third-highest amount from international tuition fees of all New Zealand universities.
Otago Polytechnic's increasing foreign student roll was also being noticed and in part prompted plans for a new hall of residence in Dunedin.
It was estimated students spent more than $311 million in the city during 2011 and on average each equivalent-full-time tertiary student had a direct expenditure of about $17,000 a year.
