It’s quite an experience knowing you’re booming out from central Timaru to about 3 million Australians as they start their day.
The coverage included a collection of live crosses, from Heritage Place.
The Sunrise visit is part of a promotional campaign that Venture Timaru is involved with — a collaboration of central South Island regional tourism organisations (RTOs).
We’re working together to promote the central South Island to Australians, with special deals to get them booking travel particularly in the off-peak demand period from now until spring.
The group of RTOs applied to the government for funding to carry out this work and were successful.
These funds come from the international visitor levy which is gathered from tourists as they enter the country.
It’s interesting to see Timaru’s latest visitor statistics for February show we’re tracking as having the third-highest growth in international visitor days among South Island RTOs, compared to the same month last year.
The data shows growth in international visitor days of 24%, and Europe overtaking China, Japan and Korea as the main source of visitors.
Timaru District figures also show that more internationals are choosing to stay overnight, with growth of 27%. Conversely our domestic visitor days dropped off, falling 8% overall.
We’ve had a busy cruise season in Timaru this year and we’re now conducting our annual survey to get feedback from our community.
We’re keen to hear from everyone what you think about having the cruise visitors come to our region.
• Di Hay is Venture Timaru’s operations and destination manager.
