Ōtautahi Christchurch is gearing up for a bumper tourist season this year as the spotlight is shone on the southern capital ahead of spring.
Prior to 2011, visitor spend exceeded $1.7 billion. As of June 2023, MarketView data shows Christchurch tipped over $1.2B worth in Domestic and International electronic card transactions in the last 12 months, with a 32.7 per cent growth in number of transactions year-on-year.
After a successful return of cruise ships to Lyttelton last October, the ‘23/’24 season is encouraging with 85 arrivals expected in the port, up from 73 in the last cruise season ending April 2023. A public meeting will be held in the port town Tuesday 8th August to discuss the industry’s impact on the township.
Another international driver of visitation is the airline industry, still in recovery since March 2020.
Several airlines have confirmed their commitments to Christchurch with new routes reopened this year, including Emirates’ Dubai service and the Qantas service direct between the Gold Coast’s Coolangatta. The long-awaited United Airlines route reopens to the USA later this year, and China Southern will reconnect Guangzhou and Hong Kong to Christchurch International Airport in November 2023.
Critical to extending a visitor’s stay, 166 rooms were added to the city’s accommodation stock with the Arts Centre Observatory and Victoria Street’s Mayfair openings last year, as well as The George recently completing a sizable renovation earlier this week. Another 196 rooms are currently under construction with the Holiday Inn site, corner of Cashel and High Streets, breaking ground recently.
With the increase in visitor numbers comes the need for a new central city isite, hibernated in June 2020 with the advent of Covid-19. With borders reopening and the tourism recovery entering a new phase, a ‘Request for Proposal’ (RFP) is currently underway for a new information site in the city.
The Visitor Information Network (VIN Inc), who run the isite network, are working to select the best operator for the city with a decision expected to be made public on August.
This process is being supported by the Christchurch City Council Growth and Property team, along with the Urban Development team at ChristchurchNZ, who have made recommendations on the geographic location based on future central city developments, traffic flows, cruise coach parking, the bus interchange and off-street parking along with the key attractions for visitation.
“We plan to put the visitor experience at the heart of the decision-making process around visitor information services in the city. The RFP process includes consideration of factors such as ease of public transport access, wayfinding and signage, the capacity to deal with large volumes of visitors, the tourism sales process, understanding of the New Zealand travel and tourism distribution system and knowledge of tourism products in Christchurch and Canterbury,” says ChristchurchNZ general manager destination and attraction Loren Heaphy.
“As the Regional Tourism Organisation, ChristchurchNZ will continue to have a key role supporting the visitor experience and have an agreement with the nominated operator.”
The aim is for the new information site to be up and running for the peak visitor season, including the cruise season, before the first cruise ship for the season arrives on November 7.
The city’s tourism campaign kicks off shortly. Visit: www.christchurchnz.com/spring for more.
