Tourism New Zealand completed a second stint at the world's leading travel trade fair, International Tourism Bourse (ITB) in Berlin, which generated very positive signals for the international travel industry in 2014.
Tourism New Zealand (TNZ) teamed up with Tourism Australia (TA) for a second year in a row at this year’s ITB, held 5-9 March. Sixteen New Zealand specialist companies and eight travel sellers specialising in both Australia and New Zealand joined as stand partners. The New Zealand specialist companies included: Air New Zealand; THL; ANZ Nature Tours, AOT, ATS, Topdeck Travel, AAT Kings, Pacific Destinationz and The Green Spot Ltd New Zealand.
The fair’s strong attendance, which included 9796 exhibitors, over 114,000 trade visitors and more than 60,000 potential travellers, signaled that the world’s travel industry has begun 2014 with confidence.
The strong interest is supported with stellar visitor arrivals being seen from Germany so far this year. For the year-ending February, holiday arrivals were up 29.1 per cent for the month and 18.5 per cent for the year, and total annual arrivals up 15.6 per cent.
“Germany is a key target market for TNZ, with German visitors staying longer than average visitors, while also visiting more regions and taking part in most paid activities,” says Danielle Genty-Nott, Regional Manager UK and Europe for Tourism New Zealand.
“Furthermore, the fair’s key themes of sustainable industry practices, luxury travel and bookings via smartphones and tablets support our priority focus areas to grow high-end visitor arrivals from Germany and our use of digital channels to drive preference for New Zealand.”
The event also hosts the world’s largest tourism convention, which also registered record levels of attendance with a total of 22,000 taking part in around 200 lectures, discussions and workshops ‒ up more than 5.0 per cent from 2013 – with Social Media and Mobile Travel Services proving to be major visitor attractions. A total of 2,000 events took place over two days, attended by 120 exhibitors and bloggers from 25 countries.
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.
