US channel to film in New Zealand

The American National Geographic channel, which has an audience of up to 80 million, is to film five, five-minute documentaries on New Zealand.

The documentaries, which will screen in US prime time, will be on the Whale Watch tourism venture off the coast of Kaikoura in the South Island; the movie Whale Rider; a profile on Wally Stone, the chairman of Tourism New Zealand and a founding director of Whale Watch; a story on round the world sailor and new head of Team New Zealand Grant Dalton; and Fiordland.

The series follows the success of The Royal Tour documentary when Prime Minister Helen Clark featured on the NBC Today Show and the Discovery Channel last year after correspondent Peter Greenberg visited New Zealand and spent several days with her.

Helen Clark took the team to Rotorua, Abel Tasman National Park, Queenstown, the Southern Alps, Waitomo and Waihi Beach.

Helen Clark also spent five days in America promoting the show, which boosted viewing figures by more than 140 per cent.

Tourism Minister Mark Burton said the series of short documentaries was another example of the "currency of New Zealand".

It followed the runaway success of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which was filmed in New Zealand against the backdrop of some of the country's most spectacular scenery.

"We are hot property as a destination," Mr Burton said.

Simone Flight, Tourism New Zealand public relations manager for America and Canada, said the first of the series would screen about 7pm at the end of June, about the time Whale Rider was released across the US.

- NZPA