Opinion
Bloody hell, NZ’s come up with a tourism slogan worse than ours
By Robert Jackman
Remember the Australian tourism campaign from around 20 years ago? The one with the guys drinking beer in the outback and a bikini-clad Lara Bingle asking “so where the bloody hell are you?” at the end? Well, it turns out it’s now the second most embarrassing tourism campaign to come from Down Under, thanks to a late entry from New Zealand.
If you have Kiwi friends you may have already seen the jokes on social media aimed at the country’s hapless new tourism slogan, “Everyone must go!” . Ever since it was unveiled last month, the campaign has been compared to everything from a desperate Boxing Day sale (never a good look) to the tag line from a fictional zombie apocalypse disaster movie in which every man and his dog must flee the country.
New Zealand’s new tourism slogan.
The campaign might be cringe-worthy and desperate, but is there a case to be made that New Zealand’s tourism bosses had no choice but to think outside the box? After all, when you look at the data, their country has seen a significant drop-off in international visitors in recent years, even as tourism has boomed elsewhere.
According to official figures, New Zealand welcomed some 3.3 million international visitors in 2024, down by about 500,000 on pre-pandemic trends. While it might not sound huge in its own right, New Zealand’s historic dependence on tourism, which contributes more than 4 per cent of its GDP, has led to one government minister saying that the situation will leave “a hole in the pocket of many Kiwis”.
It’s all a world away from 10 years ago, when New Zealand was riding the waves of a Lord of the Rings-inspired tourism boom which seemed to be running even longer than the film franchise itself. Back then, the estimates were that New Zealand would be seeing 5 million visitors a year by now. Although not everyone was pleased about the situation.
Queenstown, on the shores of the South Island’s Lake Wakatipu in New Zealand, has seen a drop in tourism.Credit: iStock
“The sheer numbers of people are eroding the sense of isolation, tranquillity and access to nature that many overseas tourists seek when visiting New Zealand,” warned Simon Upton, New Zealand’s environmental commissioner back in 2019.
It wasn’t just the environmental impact that caused consternation in Wellington, but also concerns about attracting the “right kind” of visitors.
In November 2020, Jacinda Ardern’s tourism minister, Stuart Nash, said he wanted to see New Zealand focusing on bringing in high-spending, well-heeled visitors rather than, in his words, backpackers and van-lifers who “pull over to the side of the road and s--- in our waterways”.
How things have changed in just four years. Now New Zealand isn’t just crying out for tourists, but it is actively changing some of its immigration rules to attract them.
In January, the country’s conservative government extended the period for which non-nationals can work remotely in New Zealand – to 90 days – as a way of encouraging “digital nomads” to move there. (Though they haven’t clarified whether the invitation is open to those pesky van-lifers).
As New Zealand seeks to attract more tourists, visitors will find themselves welcome at Auckland International Airport.Credit: Getty Images
So what exactly has gone wrong for New Zealand to see dwindling numbers in the first place? It isn’t like the country has undergone some tragic fate rendering it unpalatable to international visitors. Ask anyone who has ventured to Kaikōura, Wanaka or Milford Sound recently, and you’ll be lucky if you don’t spend the next 20 minutes hearing about it.
The country draws the majority of its tourists from three main markets, namely Australia, the United States and China. Of those three huge segments, only one – the United States – has recovered to 2019 levels, with Australia and China lagging behind. The latter is perhaps no surprise, given that a drop in outbound Chinese tourism has been observed across the world. But why have the Aussies been shunning their neighbour?
The bosses at Auckland airport attribute the trend to a crunch in airline capacity, stemming from the pandemic. With global tourism effectively mothballed, airlines began retiring some of their older planes. However, widespread supply chain disruption meant that there were delays in replacing them. As a result, many airlines had to rejig their routes to make the most of their fleets.
So why did New Zealand end up with fewer flights? One factor was the country’s infamous “Zero COVID” approach, which led to the islands being closed much longer than much of the rest of the world, only reopening to tourism in May 2022. The delay meant that many airlines had begun shifting their capacity elsewhere.
Auckland airport says that seat capacity between Australia and New Zealand is down 10 per cent on 2019, due, in part, to Virgin Australia suspending a number of routes. Some Asian airlines have also suspended routes, including Thai Airways and Philippine Airlines. Meanwhile, UAE-based Emirates has halved its weekly flights between Dubai and Auckland.
In the circumstances, it’s perhaps no surprise that New Zealand ad agencies are being asked to pull out all the stops to bring in more tourists.
So should we all heed the advice of the “Everyone must go” campaign and head to the Kiwi paradise for our next holiday?
Judging by the noises coming out of the country, it sounds like you can expect a warm welcome if you do. And if you really want to make them laugh, just tell them that it was the ad campaign that made your mind up.
The Telegraph, London
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