Mr Tim Hunter spoke on the tourism relationships between New Zealand and the ASEAN countries. He noted that tourism was an outstanding vehicle to build cultural and economic understanding between both regions.

Twenty years ago, many New Zealanders thoughts of travel to Southeast Asia as essentially a city experience in either Singapore or Bangkok, and that too was as a short stopover. Today, however, the perception is very different. Thirty-seven per cent of long haul travellers from New Zealand visit ASEAN countries. Annual growth in visits from New Zealand to ASEAN countries over the last ten years has increased 70 per cent.

Furthermore, the speaker added that the tourism experience of New Zealanders in Asian countries, combined with healthy immigration from the region, had infused increasing Asian influences into the everyday life of New Zealanders.

In addition, Mr Hunter noted that while no U.S. or European carriers flew to New Zealand, the country continues to be served by eight Asian carriers that contribute a massive 60 per cent share of the total long-haul capacity into New Zealand. Asian carriers have grown air capacity to New Zealand for three reasons:

1. New Zealand has seasonally balanced inbound and outbound tourism flows with multi-sector long-haul traffic feed in two directions.

2. Demand for long-haul travel by New Zealanders has grown rapidly over the past four years as the NZ dollar has strengthened.

3. New Zealand in-bound tourism consistently exceeded world average growth rates between 2000 and 2004. The growing demand for New Zealand as a tourism destination can be attributed to New Zealand's reputation as a “peaceful” destination, the success of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, and Tourism New Zealand's own very successful brand campaign “100 per cent Pure New Zealand”.

Separately, Southeast Asia has been the investment source for more than 30 per cent of New Zealand's three and four-star hotel stock in the major cities and tourist destinations.