The tourism industry helped draw more than one million Australian visitors across the Tasman in the year to May, and it now wants extra marketing dollars for other markets.
Visitors arriving at Christchurch airport from Melbourne and Sydney were welcomed yesterday with a party hosted by top brass from Tourism New Zealand and Christchurch & Canterbury Tourism.
Australia is New Zealand’s biggest market, contributing about $1 billion in visitor spending a year.
In March, the Government gave an additional $2.5 million for promotional work in Australia. Such campaigns, combined with cheap airfares have drawn Australians to New Zealand for a holiday rather than traditional destinations such as Bali or Britain…Â Details
The wait is over for ski enthusiasts across the world. Following a weekend of heavy snows in the Andes, Chile’s ski resorts opened to the public this week. Resort owners expect Chilean skiers and snowboarders – as well as northern hemisphere tourists looking for “summer†skiing – to soon flock to Chile’s ski-mountains, which received more than US$10 million this year in improvements…. Details
Several of Australia’s ski areas opened with little or no snow on June 5th/6th, but that has all changed in the past week with snow falling at most centres, leading to excellent early –season conditions.
Perisher opened its Mt Perisher ski slopes last week reporting conditions for this early in the season, “the best in a decade.â€
The resort had received 58cm (almost two feet) of fresh snow since Sunday 7 June and thanks also to Perisher’s $19 million snowmaking expansion, Saturday 13 June saw Towers Run on Mt Perisher open for skiing and boarding.
Ten lifts are currently operating across Perisher Valley and Smiggin Holes …Â Details
