Young U.S. tourist drive

Press, 26 April 1983, Page 7

Young U.S. tourist drive

By

LES BLOXHAM,

in Acapulco

New Zealand is to change its tourism marketing drive in North America in a bid to lure more visitors in the younger age group. The senior travel commissioner in North America, Mr David Chapman, says a flaw in marketing stragegy has led to most American tourists to New Zealand being in the over-55 age bracket.

Mr Chapman said; that recent surveys had showed that New Zealand was 10 per cent behind other countries in attracting young North Americans.

Mr Chapman, who took up his post in Los Angeles three months ago, plans to place greater emphasis on selling New Zealand to the 15 to 35-year-old bracket. “We have got the product to sell these people, activities such as trekking, skiing, windsurfing and river rafting,” he said during the P.A.R.A. annual conference in Acapulco, A difficulty facing Mr Chapman and his team of North American commissioners is the geographical ignorance of people in the eastern states. “In the west we have ho problems. New Zealand’s position and role in the

South Pacific is well known,” he said. “But in the east we are not known -at all”

Mr Chapman blames the American education system which no longer teaches geography. New Zealand is not alone with its identity crisis.

“A recent survey among college graduates in North Florida showed that some of them did not even know where Miami was,” he said. “Others could not even pinpoint Chicago, so what hope has New Zealand?”

“Our advertising campaign must show readers where our country is in the South Pacific.”

Mr Chapman does not believed that the younger North Americans will try to tour New Zealand on a shoe-string budget. “They will probably be after the cheapest possible airfares, but they do have and are willing to spend money on a holiday, often before settling down to have a family.” The tourist office hopes to reach the younger traveller by direct mail. Mr Chapman said he was confident that the North American tourist market to New Zealand would grow by 6 per cent this year to push the total from his region to over the 100,000 mark.