Amazing Race host helping lure US cycle tourists to NZ

The Tourism NZ cycling campaign with Amazing Race host Phil Keoghan will showcase the country as the ideal destination for a cycling holiday.

Amazing Race host Phil Keoghan is the face of a new campaign to attract United States cycle tourists to New Zealand.

Keoghan, a keen cyclist, has been hired by Tourism New Zealand to front digital and print campaigns in the US.

A Kiwi, Keoghan has just completed a 5400km ride to retrace the route of the first English-speaking team (including one Kiwi rider) in the Tour de France, soon to be released as a feature-length documentary.

The campaign was shot in December on Canterbury's Alps 2 Ocean Cycle Trail and the Queenstown Trail, and will showcase the country as the ideal destination for a cycling holiday.

Tourism New Zealand's director of marketing, Andrew Fraser, said that securing Keoghan as the face of the campaign, which launched in the United States today, was a real coup.

"Phil doesn't just have a large following in the States as host of The Amazing Race - he is also a passionate cyclist and proud Kiwi, and therefore the ideal person to be encouraging Americans to make New Zealand their next holiday destination."

Research showed that a large section of the US market was actively considering a cycling trip to New Zealand, Fraser said.

The cycle trail network spans the length of New Zealand and the cycle tourists often stayed late into March, aligning with the push to increase shoulder season travel and a wider regional spread of visitors, said Fraser.

The Amazing Race has been running in the US since 2001 and screens in more than 100 countries worldwide. In the US alone, it garnered 9.5 million viewers during its 2013-14 season. Keoghan has been the host and a producer of the US version of the show since its inception.

The campaign reflected Tourism New Zealand's wider strategy to actively target the international cycling sector as part of its focus on special interest activities - such as food and wine and golf - which have the potential to deliver increased value.

The campaign will run in Adventure Cyclist and Afar magazines, alongside online publishers CyclingNews.com, Google, YouTube, Facebook, "programmatic buying" platform AOP and video buying platform BrightRoll.

Tourism New Zealand figures showed about 318,000 international tourists participated in cycling here in the five years to 2013.