$2.5m spent by visitors - in August alone

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 12, Issue 557, 11 October 1994, Page 3

$2.5m spent by visitors - in August alone

The latest Visitor Monitor Programme results, commissioned by the Ruapehu District Council and New Zealand Tourism Board, shed some interesting light on the significance of the visitor industry to the Ruapehu District. The visitor industry is big dollars. Some 16,582 visitors stayed in commercial accommodation throughout the Ruapehu District in August 1994. These visitors stayed 42,108 nights.

Most visitors, 80 per cent, were domestic and of these 31.2 per cent were from Auckland. Other major visitor markets were Wellington, Waikato and Australia. Council' s Marketing Sub-committee chairperson June Baker said these figures were very significant and equated to $1 ,038,120 being injected into the District from international visitors and $2,592,436 from domestic visitors, and this was

just for the month of August. These estimates were based on Tourism Board expenditure studies and highlighted the return on marketing initiatives invested by the industry and the Council. Significantly, the Ruapehu District achieved the highest average occupancy rate in the North Island, although this is to be expected during the skiseason. The accommodation sector who are part of the monitor programme are pleased with the fig-

ures and look forward to a good summer. The Council and industry operators through the summer marketing campaign hope to lift the numberof visitors during summer and yield further income for the district. Mrs Baker said she was pleased to be able to quantify and maybe dispel some misconceptions that there is little benefit from the Council playing a leading role in tourism marketing.