Coronavirus: Tourism New Zealand hit by cancellation of ITB travel show in Berlin

Tourism New Zealand's promotion in Germany has been dealt a blow with the cancellation of a major global travel show.

The coronavirus outbreak has led to the cancellation of International Tourismus Borse (ITB) in Berlin, an expo that attracts 10,000 exhibitors from more than 180 countries and thousands of travel buyers.

Besides Tourism NZ, eight other Kiwi tourism businesses had booked spots at the five-day show, which organisers were forced to cancel for the first time in its 54-year history.

Fifteen delegates from New Zealand were scheduled to be at the show, one of a growing number of corporate, trade and sports events postponed or cancelled because of Covid-19, which has killed more than 3000 people globally.

While there have been a total of 90,300 cases confirmed in more than 50 countries, this morning data shows more close to 45,600 people have recovered.

Tourism NZ chief executive Stephen England-Hall said the priority was the health and wellbeing of staff and the government agency supported the call by German authorities to cancel the event.

"The German market remains incredibly important to us and we are committed to it. Tourism New Zealand will conduct the buyer-seller meetings we had scheduled for ITB via phone or video conference," he said.

ITB's organisers are also promoting the benefits of the global platform at www.itb.com.

"This is where, despite the cancellation, users can connect with other participants, exchange views and stay in touch with ITB.

"It also gives users the opportunity to do business, network and get information on all four ITB trade shows 365 days a year and provides easy access for newcomers to the sector."

Health authorities had stipulated that anyone going to the venue would have to meet requirements that they were not from a designated risk area or had not been in contact with a person or persons from a risk area and organisers said it was not possible to meet those requirements.

Global events ranging from Google's news initiative summit in California to the Milan furniture fair have been cancelled in addition to sports events from motor racing to rugby.

Employers, facing duty of care obligations, are preventing staff from attending big events for work.

Germany is New Zealand's second largest visitor market in Europe after Britain and a high value one. Just on 100,000 Germans visit every year and they spend on average $6300 each, the highest of all the target markets.

Today Tourism NZ said it would concentrate on the Australian market initially and then the United States and Britain with a $10 million boost to its budget announced by the Government last month.

Tourism New Zealand aims to partner with the tourism industry to help fund and co-ordinate a new campaign in this market.

A campaign with airlines, airports and regions - Australia short break - was aimed at generating May to November arrivals.

An Australia winter campaign would increase investment in an existing "This is how we winter" ski campaign which encourages off-peak and regional travel.

The campaign encourages July to October arrivals.

In the medium term, Tourism NZ wanted to drive growth in the next spring-summer season.

In Britain, it was launching high impact activity to capitalise on demand from the post-Brexit travel market. The campaign was aimed at encouraging travel to New Zealand next summer.

England-Hall said the British market was showing signs of a strong post-Brexit recovery.

"We are seeing really positive signs of growing consumer sentiment in Britain and the certainty that's been created is really starting to shift needles in the UK."

In the United States, there would be increased marketing around new American Airlines routes out of Auckland and Christchurch and Air New Zealand to New York later this year.

He was confident that there would always be those willing to travel but all markets "keep me awake at night to be honest", he said.

''The length of the dip will depend on the public's perception of the risk. At the moment we're not seeing any major changes in behaviour out of the US, which is a positive.''

While mainland Chinese airlines had suspended or dramatically scaled back services between New Zealand and China, there was nothing to suggest they would stay away.

"We don't have any reasons to believe that they won't resume those services - the question is how long do they take to get back to full service."

Global data from OAG points to a reversal of the trend that saw domestic airline capacity in China plunge for most of February. Last week 2.9 million scheduled seats (18,200 flights) were returned to the Chinese domestic market as the rate of infection slowed and more people returned to work.