Chinese travellers are being invited to try out a real Kiwi experience by staying at holiday parks, with a new video showing them what to expect.

The Holiday Parks Association (HAPNZ) has produced a video for use in the Chinese market.
It aims to help show visitors what they can expect to find when they travel in a campervan and stay at a New Zealand holiday park.

The video was shot in Auckland using Chinese actors and is voiced over in Mandarin, Cantonese and English language versions.

“The Mandarin version has been loaded onto our youk.com and Weibo accounts to enable Chinese nationals to easily view the video,” HAPNZ Chief Executive Fergus Brown says.

“We are seeing an increasing number of mainland Chinese visitors travelling in campervans and staying in holiday parks. The free, independent travel (FIT) market from China is growing quickly and we are finding that these FIT visitors are big spenders when it comes to buying activities and attractions through our holiday parks.”

China is now New Zealand’s third biggest visitor market, growing almost 40% in the last year to more than 191,000 visitors a year. They contribute about $555 million a year to New Zealand’s economy.

HAPNZ has offered cultural awareness training to holiday park operators to help them understand what Chinese visitors are looking for and this has proved popular, Mr Brown says.

Following New Zealand’s major international tourism expo TRENZ this year, HAPNZ joined with Tourism Holdings Ltd (thl) and ATS Pacific in running a campervan/holiday park educational trip for selected Chinese agents. This was very successful and the agents were enthusiastic about selling this product, he says.

“We believe there is a huge opportunity in FIT travel from China and Chinese travellers will enjoy our holiday parks. They get the opportunity to meet Kiwis and other independent travellers and this type of holiday provides them with a sense of adventure.”