Identifying the "gold in the sand" of the lucrative Chinese tourism market, while operators bolster hospitality with basic Chinese knowledge, were aims declared at the latest Destination Queenstown industry update this week.
DQ trade manager Ben Chapman informed more than 120 members on Wednesday of the experiences he and Southern Lakes tourism representatives shared on Tourism New Zealand trade missions over a month to Chinese cities including Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Shanghai and Beijing, as well as Southeast Asian markets such as Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.
Mr Chapman said the Chinese market New Zealand was focusing on was the "significant top end, looking for the best in everything".
The aim was to increase Chinese visitor nights in the Southern Lakes from two to three nights to five to six nights.
A third of traffic visiting Tourism New Zealand's website came from China, twice as much as from the United States, which was encouraging.
"The whole world is courting China, especially the US, so our voice needs to be as united as possible," Mr Chapman said.
He noted how New Zealand's gateway regions and airlines used Queenstown to promote international travel to those hubs. It was hoped airports and airlines would advertise connectivity to Queenstown as a destination in its own right as well, when using its images.
Mr Chapman said the resort met Chinese conference and incentive market demands with its safety, specialty and air access. However, there were challenges in flight connectivity, visa and immigration issues at government level, and service expectations.
An executive summary of DQ's draft full business plan for 2013-15 was presented by outgoing chief executive Tony Everitt during the update at Rydges Lakeland Resort.
Mr Everitt reaffirmed the target of $1 billion in annual visitor spend in Queenstown by 2015, "undeterred by the challenges thrown at us by 2011".
The domestic market "has been very kind to us" while Germanic European visitors to the Wakatipu were "still going strong" and the US was slowly picking up. However, the United Kingdom, New Zealand's second-largest market after consistently robust Australia, was likely to struggle for the next year or two.
Queenstown's "exoticism" was to be promoted and repeat business encouraged across the Tasman. South and Western Australia were identified as new territories for marketing, along with the traditional eastern seaboard, he said.
