Published on : Wednesday, April 25, 2018
To quote Steven Dixon, Tourism New Zealand regional manager, South and South-East Asia, “In 2017-18, ending February, we hosted 62,000 travellers from India, which was 16.05 per cent growth over the previous year. So looking at the trend this year, which began in March, we expect the growth to be in double digit as well.”
In 2016-17, almost 53,424 Indians tourists visited New Zealand.
“Increasing awareness through different promotional programmes and tying up with travel agents, who have promoted New Zealand as a preferred destination has helped us in achieving this growth,” he added.
Dixon stated that the government of New Zealand has targeted 1,00,000 visitors from India by 2023. If the growth carries on at the current rate, the target will be achieved much earlier.
“Indians on an average spend 13 days in New Zealand contributing quite substantially to the economy of the country,” he added.
In the meantime, Tourism New Zealand and Immigration New Zealand have introduced an extension of the Tourism Industry Partnership (TIP) Programme to make easy visitor visa application processing for Indian leisure travelers.
For this reason, Immigration New Zealand and Tourism New Zealand and signed a MoU with key travel agents.
Tags: Tourism New Zealand