Wellington Chamber Welcomes Govt Tourism Budget

Wellington Chamber Welcomes Government’s New Tourism Funding

The Wellington Regional Chamber of Commerce has welcomed the funding boost for tourism, which is to be provided for in next week’s budget, and urged the Wellington tourism sector to take advantage of the increased expenditure to attract more international visitors.

“There is huge potential to increase visitor numbers to New Zealand and government funding promoting New Zealand internationally is money well spent,” said Chamber CEO Charles Finny.

“Tourism is a vitally important part of New Zealand’s export sector. It is our largest foreign exchange earner and employs one in ten New Zealanders. Yet it has far from reached its potential in terms of the numbers we could be attracting.

“Targeted funding to promote New Zealand offshore, develop international tourism markets and grow visitor numbers is an area of government spending which has our full support.

“Wellington is one of the fastest growing visitor destinations in the country and the tourism sector is increasingly important for this region. Yet most of Wellington’s visitor growth, relative to the country as a whole, has been in the domestic market.

“We are pleased with the work that Positively Wellington Tourism has done with the government to establish the new joint venture initiatives and the focus it is putting into the Australian market.

“We hope the Wellington tourism sector can use the increased promotional funding to increase the region’s share of international visitor numbers,” Mr Finny concluded.

ENDS

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