Tourism trade show seen as proof of recovery

By SIMON HENDERY tourism writer

Record interest in the country's premium tourism trade show is a further sign the industry has shaken off the September 11 blues, say the organisers.

The annual Tourism Rendezvous New Zealand show begins at the Auckland Showgrounds this afternoon, and runs until Thursday.

A record 1500 people are registered to attend the event, a matchmaking opportunity for New Zealand tourism operators and overseas buyers.

About $1 billion of business - the same as last year - is expected to be generated between the 415 local business exhibitors and the 428 overseas buyers from 36 countries who are attending the show.

Last year's show, in Christchurch, attracted 1450 registrations and just under 400 exhibitors.

John Moriarty, chief executive of the Tourism Industry Association which runs the show, said the record interest this year was a further sign of confidence in the industry.

Tourism operators got the jitters late last year when travellers around the world put their passports in the bottom drawer after the terrorist attacks in the United States.

But despite early predictions that visitor arrivals could be down as much as 10 per cent the just-finished peak summer tourist season had turned out to be "darn good" for the industry, Mr Moriarty said.

A record 1,165,709 people visited the country between October and March, up 1.7 per cent on the previous summer.

"It's given a lot of organisations the confidence to carry on their investment programmes," Mr Moriarty said.

Meanwhile, tourism chiefs are hoping that a top-level meeting of Japanese travel industry executives - held in New Zealand for the first time last week - will help curb a slump in arrivals from that high-spending market.

Tourism New Zealand chief executive George Hickton said the visit by the board of the Japan Association of Travel Agents was a coup for the country.

"These people are influential in the Japanese tourism market, one of New Zealand's major markets for visitors."

Japan is one of only three key tourism markets that have not rebounded since September 11. The others are Germany and Singapore.

Japanese arrivals were down 14 per cent this summer.

Japanese visitors spend about $645 million in New Zealand each year - 12 per cent of total visitor expenditure.

The board had planned to meet in New Zealand last October, after three years of lobbying by Tourism New Zealand, but the visit was postponed after the US terror attacks.

Speaking in Auckland on Saturday at the end of the board's week-long visit, chairman Isao Matsuhashi said the Japanese public's enthusiasm for travelling had rebounded since January, and the industry was expecting 5 per cent growth this year.

Japanese travellers were increasingly warming to New Zealand's image as a clean, green and safe destination, said Matsuhashi, who is also chairman of JTB, a travel company which organises 30 per cent of all outbound travel from Japan.

He expected double-digit growth in Japanese visitor arrivals here over the next few years and annual arrivals to grow from 149,000 last year to 250,000 by 2005.

Hickton said: "With participants like Mr Matsuhashi, this [ board] visit has the potential to be significant for our tourism industry."

About 70 Japanese buyers and five Japanese journalists are attending the Tourism Rendezvous New Zealand show.