A four-page spread entitled "Victoriana Queen" featuring the town is in every seat pocket on Air New Zealand planes and exposes Oamaru’s Victorian Precinct, Whitestone Cheese, the Blue Penguin Colony, Steampunk, and the Waitaki Whitestone Unesco Geopark.
It particularly evokes the Victorian precinct’s atmosphere, a significant player in drawing residents and tourists during the past three decades, giving kudos to the role of the Oamaru Whitestone Civic Trust.
"Time is a little elastic in Oamaru," the article starts.
"On Harbour and Tyne streets you’ll find an almost complete Victorian streetscape, largely limestone grain and seed warehouses ... now tenanted by galleries, cafes, breweries, second-hand booksellers and other ventures."
Harbour St business owner Martin Horspool, of Buggyrobot Gallery, said they had received several comments on being featured in Kia Ora this month, describing it as "publicity you can’t really buy".
"It all highlights how important the Victorian precinct is for tourism.
"Literally every day there is someone in who have been told, ‘you must come to Oamaru’.
"That article in the Air New Zealand magazine highlights just how important that precinct is."
It also underscored Oamaru was more than a short 45-minute tour bus stop for overseas visitors, something reflected back often to precinct business owners, Mr Horspool said.
Many visitors to Oamaru were already coming on the back of personal endorsements saying, "you must visit Oamaru" and the Kia Ora article just highlighted that.
Oamaru Whitestone Civic Trust chairman Richard Vinbrux said it was good to have the trust credited for its crucial role in enhancing what made the town special and the article alone "is great for Oamaru".
"It’s really nice exposure, and it’s not common that the trust is actually mentioned in these things.
"While everyone talks a lot about the buildings, the atmosphere ... the feeling on the street, the trust is hardly ever mentioned. It’s a nice change," he said.
"It helps to prove the point that the historic precinct is the number one drawcard in Oamaru, and I would say that the precinct stands behind the economic growth of Oamaru to some extent for the township itself. The precinct and the town is the main drawcard for people to move here."
