Arrowtown charm, historic buildings visitor lure: study

Any tourist walking down Arrowtown's Buckingham St is twice as likely to be aged over 55 as any tourist in Queenstown Mall, new research by the Arrowtown Promotion and Business Association says.

The survey could prompt a move away from gold-related promotion of Arrowtown to an accent on the village's charm and preserved historic buildings.

Half of Arrowtown's visitors were older than 55 and 72% were older than 40, the association discovered, when conducting the largest market research on the village's brand and visitors.

The research showed a large proportion of independent travellers, 79% of visitors driving themselves to Arrowtown, 37% of them in rented vehicles, and a further 10% arriving privately on public transport.

Destination Queenstown's quarterly visitor reports showed 19% of Queenstown's visitors made a trip to Arrowtown, compared with 18% who travelled to Milford Sound and Fiordland.

More than 400,000 people from outside the Wakatipu region visited Arrowtown each year. Equal numbers of New Zealanders and foreigners visited the village.

Visitors' satisfaction rating with Arrowtown was measured at 8.9 out of 10, which was identical to the satisfaction rating of Queenstown.

''The 8.9 scores achieved by both Arrowtown and Queenstown are very close to the maximum possible because always there is a proportion of people surveyed who will never include a `perfect 10' in their consideration,'' research project director and association board member John Lapsley said.

A total of ''95% of visitors rated Arrowtown 8 or better, with 63% scoring it either 9 or 10. The latter are scores you can interpret as being truly delighted with their experience,'' Mr Lapsley said.

''We know the great proportion of Arrowtown's visitors are travellers making day trips to the village during a Queenstown-based holiday.

''With Queenstown's particular success as a youthful adventure sports capital, the research shows the important contribution Arrowtown makes to the Queenstown mix with its added appeal to the somewhat older demographic.''

A total of 9% of Arrowtown's visitors had been cycling, 7% were in a group which played golf and 48% had gone on walks.

The brand section of the market research covered village businesspeople and 150 visitors, who were asked to sum up Arrowtown in a sentence. Similar thoughts were grouped together into like categories, and their frequency analysed.

In descending order, the expressed thoughts were about quaintness and charm, the sense of history, the physical beauty and the town's ''good vibrations''.

''What was surprising in the brand research was that the town's gold history was specifically mentioned by only 5.3% of respondents,'' Mr Lapsley said.

''Visitors are more in love with the town's charm and preserved historic buildings than the actual specifics of its past. The town's promotion may need to be tweaked a little, because historically there's been a greater emphasis on gold with slogans like `Born of Gold' and `Pure Gold'.''

The research showed 43% of visits to Arrowtown were for two hours or less.

''It's apparent Arrowtown needs to improve the information it gives to visitors - the research indicates there are too many walking up and down the main street without a good enough idea of what's available to them, and therefore not spending as much time in Arrowtown as they might.''