Tourist council rejects image

Press, 19 December 1989, Page 7

Tourist council rejects image

By

KAY FORRESTER

The Canterbury Promotion Council has distanced itself from the proposed city image of Christchurch as the most beautiful city in the world. The chief executive of the council, Mr Bruce Dunstan, says the council, representing tourism for Canterbury, has not been consulted about the image. “Our president (Mr Peter Yeoman) received a confidential briefing with the promise of a formal presentation of the campaign package for our input. That has not happened. The campaign appears to be on a fast-track for adoption by the City Council,” he said yesterday. It was this apparent fasttracking that prompted him to speak out about the campaign, Mr Dunstan said. He had been contacted by people within the tourism industry who had reservations about the campaign. “The details they know have

come from newspaper reports. That, in itself, is a concern that people within an industry so much affected by such a campaign simply have not been consulted,” he said. His own knowledge of the campaign came from those media reports and the report of the market survey done on the campaign to the council’s jobs and promotion special committee last Friday. The market research was a matter of serious concern, he said. “We need to know how many people were surveyed, who they were, and whether key markets we are already working in were surveyed. “Our information is that those key markets are happy with the Garden City and English image Christchurch already has. That has been validated by research done five years ago of 960 departing international visitors and 600 New Zealanders.