North Island tourism operators 'move beyond competition' with new alliance

North Island tourism leaders are banding together in a new alliance, in a bid to get more visitor's boots on the ground and into the regions.

The Memorandum of Understanding has been signed at the Auckland Airport Tourism Forum in Rotorua, ahead of this week's TRENZ tourism business conference.

The partnership involves three airports and 15 regional tourism organisations.

Auckland Airport chief customer officer Scott Tasker said regions were already competing against overseas destinations to attract visitors, so this would be a more coordinated approach to promote the North Island as a destination.

"The goal behind that is to encourage more visitors to explore more of the North Island, to spread around and to stay longer and increase their spend across our regions, and that's about shifting visitors from perhaps fly-in, fly-out into deeper more rewarding journeys across regions," Tasker said.

This partnership - which was the first of its kind for North Island regional tourism organisations - would combine their insights, networks and marketing and use their collective pulling powers to entice more travellers, he said.

They would target the Australian, US and Chinese visitors markets.

Later this year, more than 60 tourism operators will connect with Australian travel sellers across the ditch at a North Island showcase.

Total visitors arrivals had recovered to more than 80 percent of pre-pandemic levels in the year to December.

Auckland Airport had seen an 11 percent increase in overseas visitor arrivals year-on-year to last December, and overall, the airport had recovered to about 84 percent of pre-pandemic levels.

Tasker said they were trying to close that gap and their goal was for the country's total visitor arrivals to be back at pre-Covid levels by the end of summer 2026, he said.

Tātaki Auckland Unlimited destination director Annie Dundas said this partnership helped them to strengthen their international presence.

"The travel landscape is changing, and we need to be smarter about how we show up overseas to sell our respective regions," she said.

"This partnership allows us to be clearer in our proposition, which in turn will make it easier to meet the needs of our travel partners overseas and ultimately future travellers."

RotoruaNZ chief executive Andrew Wilson called the partnership a "bold and necessary step forward".

"By working together, we move beyond competition and into collaboration - showcasing the sheer breadth of experiences available in our part of Aotearoa, from coastlines to culture, from wellness to adventure," he said.

Auckland Airport chief executive Carrie Hurihanganui said the tourism industry was still in recovery mode and a little bit behind compared to the rest of the world.

While she was confident the industry would catch up, she said it was going to take a collaborative approach

"The reality is that we're operating in a highly competitive market for airline seat capacity and as a long haul destination we need to make sure that as a tourism sector we're working together to drive traveller demand," she said.

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