San Francisco Event Outperforms Expectations
Tourism New Zealand Media Release 24 August 2005
New Zealand Maori culture and tourism have been exposed to an audience of nearly nine million people at the recent 'Maori Art Meets America' event held in San Francisco.
Tourism New Zealand and Toi Maori Aotearoa organised one of the largest New Zealand-focused events ever to take place in America.
Tourism New Zealand Chief Executive George Hickton says results of the event exceeded expectations in terms of both attendance numbers and media coverage.
"The media coverage spanned from print to television, and included major publications such as Wall Street Journal (circulation 1,820,600), New York Times (circ. 1,130,740), LA Times (circ. 1,014,044)."
The event received strong coverage from the San Francisco newspapers and made 28 television appearances, including Compulsive Traveler CBS "Maori Traditions" (500,000), a 30-minute programme on local KRON television which was shown twice (viewership 192,000), CBS 5 Eyewitness News (view. 97,000), ABC 7 Morning and ABC 11am news (combined view. 114,000).
"Our aim was to increase the awareness of New Zealand as a potential holiday destination, and it really would have been difficult to miss us while the event was on," said Mr Hickton.
The 'Maori Art meets America' event in San Francisco included the dawn arrival of the ceremonial waka beneath the Golden Gate bridge, where it was welcomed by First Nation Tribes of Northern California. The exhibition Toi Maori: Art from the Maori People of New Zealand held at the central city Yerba Beuna Center for the Arts and the Kapa Haka performances from Te Puia both enthralled the American audiences over a ten-day period.
The overall event created the largest representation of Maori art and culture ever seen in North America.
Tourism New Zealand also ran an advertising campaign around San Francisco at the time of the event to promote New Zealand as a destination, and also set up an i-SITE information centre so that locals who were inspired by the events could find out more about travelling to New Zealand.
Over 25,000 people visited the exhibition, with over 5,000 attending the Kapa Haka Performances in the Yerba Beuna gardens and Union Square with hundreds attending the dawn ceremony and Tourism New Zealand tourism trade functions.
Garry Nicholas, Toi Maori Aotearoa General Manager said, "A measure of the influence this event has had on San Francisco is best demonstrated by the issue of the proclamation by San Francisco's Mayor Newsom announcing 4th August 2005 official Toi Maori Day, in addition a Certificate of Honor was awarded by the Board of Supervisors from the city and county of San Francisco to the Maori people of New Zealand".
Every year there are around 280,000 visitors from the United States to New Zealand, and they contribute over NZ$614 million in total to the economy.
ENDS
Cas Carter
Corporate Communications
Tourism New Zealand