Exoticism, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Rural Tanzanians who don't look twice at zebras might regard a plastic kiwi from the $2 Shop as a wondrous sight. Kiwi kids love Chiclets because having a packet makes them more special than their mates.
Thus Korean,Chinese and Taiwanese tourists love sheepskin - good news for local industries that make slippers, rugs and woolly bric-a-brac.
But it's a little harder to get to grips with the fact that visitors to these shores rate The Warehouse as their favourite local retailer. That was the finding of a survey of 2000 visitors from 80 countries conducted by Arrival magazine.
The result must have been helped a little by the sheer ubiquity of the Red Sheds: a branch of the discounter is the first thing you see as you drive away from Auckland Airport. Nationwide there are 80 stores, and another will probably open somewhere by lunchtime, so it's pretty hard to get away from them and they are more likely to stick in the memory than that exquisite little boutique in Queenstown.
But there's something surreal and slightly depressing about the thought of all those Asian tourists coming down here and snapping up bargains that were made in their countries of origin. Couldn't they get it cheaper at home? Think of the carbon footprint generated by flying something all that way back to where it came from.
Maybe the numbers are made up by German backpackers buying that waterproof poncho they never needed in Australia or stocking up on camping paraphernalia. Let's just hope no one thinks that Dr Who action figures and CD soundtracks of bad movies are our major export products. It could be bad for the national image.
