Regional tourism highlights: August

Beautiful Napier made several headlines this month. Read on to find out what’s been happening in the Hawke’s Bay region.

At the end of each month, we bring you regional tourism highlights so you can stay up-to-date with airline, travel and tourism news from around New Zealand.

It may be winter, but NZ’s tourism industry is on fire! Forgive the bad pun… here, we’ll let this month’s regional tourism news speak for itself.

Napier-based tourism conference a record sell-out

More than 320 tourism delegates attended the Tourism Conference in early August. The conference was hosted by Tourism Export Council of New Zealand (TECNZ). Hawke’s Bay Tourism general manager Annie Dundas described the event as the “most successful ever”.

Extra flights to boost business to the Bay

Air New Zealand has added several new flights between Napier and Auckland to its weekly schedule. Ian Collier — Air New Zealand’s Regional Affairs Manager — said this is in response to high demand from business travellers.

Coastal Pacific train service to return from December

KiwiRail’s beautiful scenic train journey between Picton and Christchurch has been out of action since the 2016 Kaikoura earthquakes. The Coastal Pacific service is set to begin again in December — great news for South Island tourism.

Package of options needed for local tourism infrastructure

Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) is proposing another visitor levy — called the Local Tourist Levy — for certain tourism towns. LGNZ believes this may help to “alleviate the burden on local ratepayers”.

Kaikoura: Crayfish worth travelling for, says Lonely Planet

In this fun news story, Kaikoura made international headlines for its delicious crayfish. Lonely Planet named the local crayfish as the 7th top food experience in a list of 500. Not bad!

Marlborough tops growth in spend by cruise visitors

Marlborough welcomed over 112,000 cruise ship visitors to its shores during the 2017/18 cruise ship season, and they spent up a storm. The visitors spent $18 million in Marlborough; an 80% increase on the previous year.

That’s all for this month. We’ll be back at the end of September with more regional tourism updates.

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