Rotorua Mayor Tania Tapsell will attend a tourism roadshow in China from March 21 to April 2. Photo / Andrew Warner
Rotorua Mayor Tania Tapsell will travel to China next month as the city seeks to rebuild a tourism market eroded during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Tapsell will attend a tourism roadshow from March 21 to April 2.
She will visit Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and Guangzhou as part of Kiwi North – China 2026, including meetings with the head offices of China’s largest online travel platform, Ctrip, and national carrier Air China.
Kiwi North is a joint initiative between RotoruaNZ, Auckland’s Tātaki Auckland Unlimited and WellingtonNZ, aimed at lifting international visitation across the North Island.
Attracting more visitors from China has been identified as a key economic target for Rotorua, where the recovery in Chinese tourism has lagged behind other major New Zealand centres.
Chinese visitors accounted for about $3 million in spending in the year ending November 2025, down from $8m in the year to November 2019, according to statistics from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.
Rotorua’s share of this tourism market has also fallen from about 3% to 1.35%, lower than Queenstown, Christchurch and Dunedin.
Queenstown, in particular, has rebounded close to pre-Covid levels, recording $23m in Chinese visitor spending and a 9.78% market share in November 2025, compared with $35m and 12.44% in 2019.
Other Rotorua visitor markets, such as Australia and Canada, have returned to near pre-Covid levels, while the United States has now surpassed its previous market position to become Rotorua’s biggest.
This will be Tapsell’s fifth visit to China since becoming mayor in 2019.
She last visited in February last year with then councillor Rawiri Waru for a similar roadshow, which received support from tourism operators including Rotorua Canopy Tours, Te Puia and Polynesian Spa.
Tapsell told Local Democracy Reporting it will be a “real honour” to represent Rotorua internationally again and backed the Kiwi North initiative to help “rebuild our reputation, grow our economy, and protect thousands of local jobs” dependent on tourism and hospitality.
Recent success in the domestic tourism space left Tapsell wanting to ensure Rotorua returns to being a “top destination” for worldwide travellers.
Chinese visitors spend an estimated average of $6000 per trip to New Zealand, she said.
“China continues to be one of New Zealand’s most important tourism and trade markets,” she said.
“Any investment is carefully considered and any international trip would only happen if we believe there will be direct benefit back to Rotorua.”
The trip will be funded through the mayor’s international delegation fund, a reserve built from Rotorua Lakes Council charging international delegates for city visits, which currently sits at $48,444.
Tapsell’s travel is expected to cost about $4550, with no funding from rates.
Councillors unanimously approved the mayor’s trip in a meeting on Wednesday.
Deputy Mayor Sandra Kai Fong will chair one council meeting during Tapsell’s absence and will assume civil defence and emergency management responsibilities should the need arise.
The visit received broad support from councillors and tourism operators.
Councillor Merepeka Raukawa-Tait said she wanted to see Chinese tourism return to pre-Covid levels and backed Tapsell as the city’s strongest advocate overseas.
“I’d like to see you away at least twice a year,” Raukawa-Tait said, adding that North America should also be a future focus.
Councillor Te Rika Temara-Benfell welcomed the council “stepping up” to raise Rotorua’s international profile and noted the trip was being undertaken in an “economic manner”.
Another councillor, Don Paterson, highlighted a 29% increase in Chinese visitors to Rotorua in December last year compared with the same month in 2024.
Councillor Robert Lee wished the mayor well in encouraging Chinese visitors to stay longer in Rotorua and the North Island before they “slide off to the South Island”, describing Rotorua’s share of the Chinese visitor market as “alarming”.
Mathew Nash is a Local Democracy Reporting journalist based at the Rotorua Daily Post. He has previously written for SunLive, been a regular contributor to RNZ and was a football reporter in the UK for eight years.
– LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.