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Tourism in New Zealand By W Glen Croy Tourism has been one of the original industries in New Zealand, and, as in a number of countries around the world, New Zealand is placing increasing emphasise on tourism to develop the economy (Ministry of Tourism, 2004). New Zealand hosted over 2 million international tourists in the year ended October 2003 (Tourism New Zealand, 2004a). Combined with over 16 million over night domestic visitors in 2001 (Tourism Research Council New Zealand, 2004) New Zealand has a substantial tourism industry in a country of just 4 million people. In fact the New Zealand tourism industry generates almost 10 percent of New Zealand's GDP with approximately $13 billion in domestic and international tourism earnings (Ministry of Tourism, 2004). With the size, importance and impact of the industry the Ministry of Tourism, Tourism New Zealand (TNZ), and the Tourism Industry Association of New Zealand (TIANZ) have taken a more active role in the development and management of the industry as a whole. In 2001 the New Zealand Tourism Strategy 2010 was released and within it identified the future direction of New Zealand tourism (Tourism Strategy Group, 2001). There were four key principles leading this direction. First, tourism was needed to be sustainable, and within this securing and conserving a long term future. Second, it was also identified to be internationally competitive and this meant significantly marketing and managing a world class visitor experience. The industry was identified to need increased efficiency and effectiveness, basically translated to worker smarter. Finally, that the tourism industry provided a financial contribution to New Zealand. In relation to the second principle TNZ has, in addition to direct marketing initiatives (induced images), implemented complementary programmes of international media hosting and leveraging off existing images and events (organic images). This image building and promotion process effectively utilises TNZ's limited financial resources by using other groups' resources to provide the images and then creating association to New Zealand. Specifically, the results of hosting media are stories in the target markets' general media explicitly about New Zealand, building and enhancing the awareness of New Zealand and motivating the audience to visit. Association with existing images in films, such as LOTR and Whale Rider, and events, such as the America's Cup and the Speight's Coast to Coast, reflects and reinforces the core images that TNZ are promoting and build a more complex image, explicitly of New Zealand, in the audiences' mind. The result of this image association creates increased complexity and hence reliability of the audiences' images of New Zealand for basing a destination choice decision. The programmes of media hosting and association with existing images utilise organic (autonomous) agents of image formation, being the general media and word-of-mouth. These agents provide a perceived credibility that could not be provided with direct marketing efforts, or induced agents (Gartner, 1993). Additionally, these programmes obtain much more market coverage than could be obtain with the direct initiatives. New Zealand's Interactive Traveller One of the key outcomes from New Zealand Tourism Strategy 2010 for TNZ, New Zealand's international tourism marketing organisation, was to focus their marketing the ideal tourist: `the interactive traveller' Rotherham & Hirschberg, 2003; TNZ, 2004d). This included the four principles above, and reinforced the change in focus over the previous decade to on the value of tourists, rather than the number of tourists. In general TNZ (2004e: 1) define the interactive travellers as "regular international travellers who consume a wide range of tourism products and services. They are travellers who seek out new experiences that involve engagement and interaction, and they demonstrate respect for natural, social and cultural environments". The interactive traveller's key reason to visit New Zealand is to interact with the landscape, though there are commonalities in their collective behaviours (Table 1). A few features of this collective behaviour is that they are more likely got to the cinema, as well as other contemporary and historical cultural experiences, and they are also more likely to be high users of technology (TNZ, 2004d). Characteristics of the Interactive Traveller 25-34 or 50-64 years Without children - haven't had or empty nesters Up-to-date with news and current affairs Contemporary and historic cultural experiences High users of technology Healthy Liberal Entertain at home Enjoy challenging situations Enjoy fine wine and cuisine High levels of disposable income Have influence on their peer group Source: Tourism New Zealand, 2004e TNZ implemented research projects on identifying and targeting the interactive traveller. One of these projects identified the decision-making process of interactive travellers (TNZ, 2004c). From this research TNZ identified interactive travellers had relatively short planning times, and placed importance on technology in this process. Nonetheless, friends and family were the most important source of information and recommendations. The main focus in the pre-site visit was searching for places to visit and things to do, rather than places to stay and how to get around, and was identified as a key phase in the holiday experience. Contrastingly, the decisions made before visiting the destination are for accommodation and transport. Again a lot of these plans are investigated and confirmed via websites. Basically, the icons of the destination are identified before travelling and the holiday is based around these icons. Then the accommodation and transport is booked before travelling, to get to the first icon at least. Once in the country, there is much more reliance on the information collected prior to travelling and information from locals and information centres to get to the other pre-trip identified icons. The interactive traveller in the pre-site stages collects amounts of information, mainly from the internet about a proposed destination (induced sources). These sources provide expectations of the icons of the destination and a general travel plan is created. When on-site the extensive expectations are compared to the real experience and this would either confirm or contradict expectations. At this stage many interactive travellers have the capacity to change their travel behaviour due to the low levels of pre-confirmed arrangements, and thus can dramatically modify their overall satisfaction levels, as compare to a pre-determined trip without the flexibility to modify dissatisfying travel experiences. LOTR and other films are very prominent on the TNZ website, as noted above, and websites are a primary source of travel information. Even though there may be a perceived lack of credibility with the website, due to its induced agent nature, it would be likely that the films, and especially LOTR, will become destination icons of New Zealand, and consequently be a feature of a general travel plan. Additionally LOTR is often mentioned in other information sources regarding New Zealand, reinforcing not only the iconic feature, though also the credibility. Thus the LOTR locations and tours of the movies identified on the website, match well with the icon features noted by the TNZ decision making research and assistance in identifying the information required by the interactive traveller. Nonetheless, what was missed in the TNZ research on interactive travellers was what sparks the initial destination motivation and choice, the organic images that create or influence the awareness of and motivation to visit a destination. The Figure 1 model portrays the importance of organic images in the initial image formation and motivation to visit a site. The model also shows how organic images create awareness, availability and expectations, along with induced images, and form the basis of the decision-making process. It is these organic images that are the most important in the formation of an evaluative image that decides on a specific destination to visit (MacInnis & Price, 1987; Baloglu & McCleary, 1999). With the characteristic of watching films, and it would be assumed based on the other characteristics, of watching critically acclaimed films, the LOTR trilogy would have been a `must see'. Thus LOTR, for the ideal interactive traveller, would have also been a source of the motivating and image enhancing organic image. This would be especially reinforced by LOTR and New Zealand coverage in the general media targeted, by TNZ through the international media hosting programme to the interactive traveller. Source: Monash University, http://arrow.monash.edu.au/hdl/1959.1/2501 Home