Cultural Tourism

Overview The National Tourism Strategy 2010 specifically identified cultural tourism as an area needing further investigation. But what is cultural tourism? How do our visitors experience it? And how can we improve our current offering? Demand for Cultural Tourism Research was commissioned in 2003.

Our target market rates culture and history as a strong motivation to come to New Zealand.

The National Tourism Strategy 2010 identified cultural tourism as a sector needing further development to maximize its potential.

In order to better understand this, Tourism New Zealand, on behalf of an interagency working group commissioned Colmar Brunton research to undertake a research study into the demand for cultural tourism in New Zealand.

The research indicated that both domestic and international visitors were interested in experiencing cultural tourism products. In fact, 50% of the Interactive Traveller© market said that after landscape, culture and history were the most important motivators for their visit to New Zealand.

However domestic visitors had a far higher consumption of cultural tourism products than international ones.

In fact, the research showed that International visitors did not have a strong expectation of what cultural tourism products they would be able to consume in New Zealand, and were surprised by the diversity of what was available.

Conclusions drawn from this research indicated that New Zealanders were not strong advocates for cultural tourism products, and often did not think to tell visitors about some of the tourism options available with the cultural sectors - including museums, historical sites, events and food and wine experiences.

Demand for Cultural Tourism Research Report.pdf