Expecting World Cup windfall, NZ tourism eyes 33% more Indians

Mumbai: Tourism New Zealand is eyeing a massive 33 per cent growth in Indian travellers to the island Pacific nation this fiscal as it expects an influx of visitors for the World Cup Cricket it is co-hosting with Australia in February and March.

"Last year we did about 30,000 visitors. It is growing quite quickly. We expect about 40,000 visitors when our fiscal year ends in June," Tourism New Zealand general manager Asia David Craig said.

The island nation expects a large chunk of visitors during the World Cup and hopes that it would provide a fillip in subsequent years.

"The World Cup will improve our profile as a leading tourism destination. Not everyone visiting New Zealand would be doing it for the World Cup. For the tournament we expect 5,000-10,000 if India does," Craig said.

On the profile of Indians visiting New Zealand, he said the young (18-29 years) are the adventurers and travel from October-December, and with the honeymooners are a subset of this segment) and the families market normally come down during the April-June quarter.

In the fiscal year ended June 2013, nearly 30,000 Indians visited the Pacific islands, Craig said, adding this year they are also looking at business travellers to drive growth as it focuses on the the MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions) segment too, which is comparatively small from an India perspective with around 1,500 visitors a year.

When asked how India is placed among other visitors, Craig said the country ranks 10th in terms of visitors. He said Tourism New Zealand spends around NZD (New Zealand dollar) 4 million (around Rs 19 crore) in India each year for promotion.

"India ranks 10th at the moment, but the rate of growth from this market is faster than any other market amongst the top 10 with annual growth being about 17 per cent," he said, adding NZ gets about 1.1 million visitors from Australia and about a quarter of million from China.