KEY POINTS:
One of Australia's biggest tourism marketing bodies will spend more than a million dollars this year convincing Kiwis to look beyond the traditional Gold Coast and Surfers Paradise holiday.
Tourism Queensland chief executive Anthony Hayes, who was in New Zealand last week to visit key tourism players, said
as Queensland's biggest tourist market, New Zealand was too important to sit back and ignore.
The state recorded 430,000 visits by Kiwis last year, nearly half of the million visits to Australia by New Zealanders.
"New Zealand is our number one source market. We have always considered it to be important. But what has changed is how we deal with it."
Two years ago the state marketer switched from a focus on wholesale travel operators to selling Queensland direct to the public and now it's trying to tell Kiwis about a wider range of places to visit and experiences to be had.
"Some New Zealanders come four or five times a year, we have to provide new opportunities and new stories to tell." Hayes said one area where there was more potential was marketing the islands of the Great Barrier Reef.
"We don't want to pitch ourselves against Fiji, we see ourselves as something different."
Hayes said there was 1200km difference between the most northern island and the southern island in the reef. Hayman Island had one of the top five resorts in the world yet only 3 per cent of its visitors were from New Zealand.
He said Tourism Queensland was not just interested in boosting numbers of visitors but was aiming to attract higher-yielding visitors or those who stayed longer and spent more.
New Zealanders on average spend $2000 a visit to Australia.
Targeting the premium end of the market was also how Tourism Queensland hoped to cope with tougher economic times, although he not did expect Australia to fall off the radar for New Zealanders even with tighter spending conditions.
"Australia is a short-haul destination for Kiwis - you might find Kiwis less likely to go to Disneyland but Australia is still very much on their list."
Tourism Australia regional manager for New Zealand Vito Anzelmi said that in March alone Australia had experienced a 17 per cent increase in New Zealand visitors, although January had been slower.
He said a recent travel expo hosted by Tourism Australia in Auckland also showed there was strong interest in Australia. It attracted 6000 visitors and $500,000 of bookings.