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Established skydiving tourism operator NZONE has been strapping people to its belly and jumping out of planes for 17 years, but an enterprise trip to India is opening up a whole new market.
The traditional customer is aged between 18 and 35 and comes from Australia, Britain, parts of Europe, and the United States.
But sales manager Ben Chapman said the customer base was broadening and more people in their 40s, 50s and 60s were jumping. The company's oldest skydiver was 96 and the youngest only 6.
NZONE had about 12,000 customers a year at its Queenstown centre and about 3000 in Rotorua. An increasing number came from India.
"They are the rich, they're the elite, so there's very much a, 'I wear these clothes, I drive this car, I travel to places like New Zealand and I partake in these activities'," Chapman says. "It is a bit of a status thing."
In March, the company joined a week-long Tourism New Zealand enterprise mission to India, during which they held meetings with 14 key travel industry companies and gave presentations to about another 100 firms in Delhi and Mumbai.
The reception was exceptional, Chapman said. "Obviously, we're well established in New Zealand and we are a product that, for our core markets, is maturing. In India it's a very new product."
NZONE's Indian market was still small but growing - up about 46 per cent between May 2005 and May last year. "It's made us realise that even though we have a company that's 17 years old, there are still new markets that have really no concept of our product. With the right education and information they will want to experience it."
According to Statistics New Zealand, 21,038 people visited New Zealand from India during the year ended May, still a relatively small number but an increase of 11.5 per cent on the previous year.
"Because those 20,000 people only deal with a select number of travel trade [companies] that deal with New Zealand, their awareness is high and so we expect significant growth within that market in terms of share going forward," Chapman said.
The family summer season for Indian travellers was between March and May, Chapman said. "May is our down time so we've suddenly got a significant increase in business in a time that we're normally quiet," he said. "It does make a huge difference for us."
Tourism New Zealand's contacts were invaluable, and working with the international marketing body was as good as having staff in India, Chapman said. "The scenario is relatively simple: when you pull up in Auckland to an office, it's well signposted and you walk in the door to reception and go to the person you're supposed to meet," he said.
"But in India, you walk down an alley, through a door and up three flights of rickety stairs and suddenly you're in an office of 20 people."
