Wakatipu business, investment and tourism stand to benefit if ties between Queenstown and its Chinese counterpart are formalised as sister cities, the Queenstown Chamber of Commerce says.
Delegates from the chamber, the Queenstown Lakes District Council, Destination Queenstown, Queenstown Resort College, Amisfield Winery, Ziptrek Ecotours, Novotel Queenstown Lakeside and Film New Zealand met city and industry officials last week in Hangzhou, a picturesque tourism-based city of 8.3 million, with 80 million domestic visitors a year.
Queenstown delegates will reconvene in the next few weeks to share views and decide the next step.
Chamber chief executive and delegate Ann Lockhart said yesterday she felt the visit was a success, with a memorandum of understanding signed and the two parties looking at signing a sister-city relationship within the next 12 months.
''The memorandum said both towns would look at a mutually advantageous relationship around culture, education and commerce,'' Ms Lockhart said.
''We see a sister-city relationship as having a number of benefits to the commercial sector, tourism being an obvious one ... There are opportunities around film, education and investment, so I imagine we'll be talking to a number of parties across those sectors going forward.''
Council chief executive and delegate Adam Feeley said the potential benefits of a strong relationship between the district and Hangzhou went well beyond simply having more Chinese tourists.
''There are opportunities for Chinese investment here, as well as buying our goods and services; for example, wine exporting and educational programmes.''
However, there were no easy ''overnight successes'' with China.
''The Chinese place huge value on long-term relationships and New Zealand is something of a peripheral market to them compared to Europe or North America.''
That was where the sister-city relationship would help, he said. New Zealand was already acknowledged in China for initiatives such as being the first OECD country to enter a free-trade agreement with it.
The council had not decided if, or when, to progress from the memorandum to sister-city status, but there were options for progressing the matter next year, Mr Feeley said. A Hangzhou official might be seconded in an effort to strengthen ties and promote business and tourism opportunities.
DQ chief executive and delegate Graham Budd said delegates were made very welcome by Hangzhou.
''We were conscious, as we had been all along, of the big disparity in size between Hangzhou and Queenstown and we discussed that with them and they indicated that wasn't a concern to them whatsoever.
''There is some really nice synergy between our places in terms of opportunity, so a very positive visit.''
