Kia ora THE I hope you're keeping safe and well as we head into autumn, an important season for our industry. I am in India as part of the Prime Minister's delegation and yesterday Tourism New Zealand hosted a fantastic tourism reception and a tourism roundtable discussion with Minister Upston in Mumbai. There is a clear appetite to strengthen the ties between the two countries which is exciting, given India is one of the fastest-growing outbound travel markets in the world. There were several initiatives announced too, including agreements with 9 Indian travel trade partners for joint campaigns promoting off-peak travel to our shores; a new campaign inspiring Indian visitors to visit us during winter; an MoU between Air New Zealand, Auckland Airport and TNZ to invest in campaigns to build off-peak demand from Indian travellers; and an agreement between Christchurch International Airport and Ngāi Tahu Tourism for their 'Magnificent South' campaign, promoting the South Island to India. It's also exciting to see Air New Zealand and Air India working on boosting air connectivity with the establishment of a new codeshare partnership, and exploring the potential introduction of a direct service by the end of 2028. Yesterday was an exciting day too as New Zealand became the first fully playable destination in the Minecraft world. This is a major piece of activity aimed at growing year-round visitation and was produced in collaboration with 11 mana whenua groups, the tourism industry, Warner Bros, and Mojang Studios (the developers of Minecraft). Minecraft is the best-selling video game of all time and there's great crossover between players and New Zealand's audience. There are 70 million people among Minecraft's audience who are seriously considering a visit to New Zealand from our key markets, which presents an incredible opportunity for us in this campaign! We launched in eight key markets yesterday, alongside the Minecraft downloadable content that features six playable New Zealand locations in the Minecraft universe. Over the campaign period we will release PR and influencer activity, major trade partnerships and joint ventures in our core markets, and paid media to build interest in New Zealand and encourage our audience to book a holiday here. Keep your eyes peeled! We're eager to have the industry involved too, and we've produced a toolkit to help you with this. We've already been blown away by the interest in this project from RTOs and operators, and can't wait to hear what potential visitors to New Zealand think. I'm really looking forward to seeing all this activity throughout the campaign. 
As you will have seen, last month we also launched Everyone Must Go!, a targeted campaign for the Australian market which made headlines for its tongue-in-cheek approach to encouraging potential visitors to consider New Zealand as a holiday destination. We're keen to see this attention and interest convert into additional trans-Tasman arrivals over the coming months. Speaking of arrivals, the latest Stats NZ international visitor arrivals data showed that January 2025 visitor numbers were up 13% compared to January 2024, with 370,317 arrivals. MBIE's International Visitor Survey earlier this month also showed a positive shift in visitor spending, revealing that international visitors contributed $12.2b to the New Zealand economy in 2024, a huge increase of 23% ($2.3b) compared to 2023. This shows there is good momentum and reminds us of the key role we all play in New Zealand's aspirations for economic growth. Lastly, we're continuing to wish Russ Cook (also known as The Hardest Geezer) well as he runs the Te Araroa trail, showing off New Zealand to his audience of over two million people. Russ is an iconic endurance athlete in the UK and around the world, and his journey will build New Zealand's appeal as a year-round destination in the UK. He's making impressive progress en route to Cape Reinga and you can keep up with his journey here. As always - if you have any questions, feedback, or want to get in touch with myself or one of the Tourism New Zealand team, please contact us. | 
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