Summer was approaching and it was time to encourage New Zealanders to get out and enjoy their own backyard, tourism industry spokesmen said yesterday at the opening of one of the largest tourism conferences to be held in Wanaka.
Visitor Information Network chairman Kerry Marshall, of Nelson, said yesterday in an interview with the Otago Daily Times that keeping the momentum going after a successful winter tourism season would be one of the biggest challenges.
Economists have said this summer may be a crunch time for tourism-focused communities such as the southern lakes, as the aftershocks of the worldwide recession continue to reverberate and discourage international travel.
Mr Marshall said the Australian market had helped the southern lakes tourism industry remain buoyant this winter.
Factors included $800 tax concessions for Australian residents, combined with cheap airfares to New Zealand, an aggressive Australia-focused marketing campaign by Tourism New Zealand and excellent snow conditions in the region for skiers.
It was important to continue to encourage international tourism, but "one of our biggest challenges now is to get domestic visitors in and to get locals exploring their regions", Mr Marshall said.
Mr Marshall, who is also the Mayor of Nelson, said he received positive feedback about New Zealand on a recent trip to the United States.
He believed it would be only a matter of time before North American travellers started coming to New Zealand again.
In the meantime, "there needs to be some quite strong internal marketing", Mr Marshall said.
Many people, including himself, had thought the southern lakes region's main strength was as a winter destination, and had not realised summer activities were even more important to the local economy, Mr Marshall said.
"Your marketing is quite good. You just have to keep reminding people," he said.
Lake Wanaka Tourism chief executive James Helmore said yesterday the market mix changed during the summer, with domestic visitor numbers expected to increase while those of international visitors dropped.
However, total visitor numbers were expected to drop about 5% this summer, Mr Helmore said.
"Each place around New Zealand will be different. For example, Queenstown, which gets a lot of Asians, may be down 30-40%," Mr Helmore said.
Several summer events would be hosted by the town in the next six months to draw in domestic visitors, Mr Helmore said.
