Chinese star's wedding media windfall

The wedding of Chinese actress Yao Chen and Cao Yu, pictured outside St Peter's Anglican Church, rocketed Queenstown and the country's profile as a romantic destination to her and her guests' millions of social media followers, Destination Queenstown reported to the Queenstown Lakes District Council on Tuesday. Photo supplied.

A Queenstown Lakes District councillor has asked Destination Queenstown to enable more Asian celebrity weddings, following the massive exposure the nuptials of Chinese actress Yao Chen gave the Wakatipu in November.

Cr Lex Perkins described Yao Chen's 37 million followers on Weibo, China's equivalent network to Twitter, as a phenomenon and ''great for us'', when the impact of the wedding was included as a highlight in DQ's six-monthly report to the council on Tuesday.

Tabling the report, Destination Queenstown chief executive Graham Budd said the wedding was an example of the continuing strong partnership with Tourism New Zealand.

The report said there were 40 million discussion items registered on Weibo around Yao Chen and her wedding, with the New Zealand location a key topic.

Tourism NZ monitored 6900 media articles about her wedding in Chinese media by the end of November, coverage worth tens of millions of dollars in publicity in the emerging visitor market.

Mr Budd told councillors, in summary of his report, the visitor economy was in ''pretty good shape'' with a good summer experienced by many operators. However, Easter arrived a little earlier this year and it was unknown what would happen afterwards, he said.

Cr Simon Stamers-Smith said he hoped for a good winter.

The report, which was received, told councillors Queenstown's visitor numbers were making a ''slow, but steady recovery'' after the global financial market condition and patchy weather created a challenging trade environment for Destination Queenstown's more than 800 members over the previous six-months.

The high-end of the long-staying British visitor market was showing signs of life, but a full return to market health was still clearly a long way off.

Destination Queenstown was exploring and developing airline connectivity with Tourism NZ to boost Asian opportunities.

Australians were being encouraged to visit the South Island via road trips as part of a campaign between Tourism NZ and RTOs, including Destination Queenstown, and encouraged to visit Queenstown specifically in Destination Queenstown 's east coast campaign, launched in February.

DQ will use the New Zealand PGA Golf Championship, the rebranded Gibbston Wine and Food Festival, Queenstown Bike Festival, Arrowtown Autumn Festival, Queenstown Winter Festival and New Zealand Winter Games to leverage the Wakatipu and motivate travel, the report said.

DQ was ''working hard'' to secure another airline sponsor for the winter festival, after Air New Zealand did not renew its contract for the 2013 event.

However, television broadcasts in 25 countries and increased internet exposure of Queenstown was anticipated via a new partnership with IMG Media when it covered the winter games in August.