Air New Zealand Holidays 2005 New Zealand brochure is now available and offers one of the most comprehensive New Zealand product ranges on the market.

Bigger and better than ever, the 72 page brochure include new products and features in direct response to travel agent and consumer feedback.

The brochure features over 28 destinations throughout New Zealand including over 145 hotels, motels, apartments and luxury lodges, 112 activities and sightseeing tours, nine accommodation passes, seven car and motorhome rental companies, six walking tracks, seven suggested self-drive itineraries plus a range of ferry, train and coach passes.

One of the great new features this year will be a handy large-scale tear out touring map of New Zealand designed to help travellers plan their itinerary and better still take it with them on their holiday for easy reference.

The new program also incorporates much more apartment style accommodation in response to the trend for Australians booking longer stays.

Dedicated apartment-style accommodation has been added in key centres such as Auckland and Queenstown and for the first time includes a new apartment pass option with Oceana Resorts & Apartments allowing for total flexibility for self-drive tours with apartments available from $106 per person per night twin share.

Customers can also access a brand new coach travel pass system, Flexi-Pass, operated by Intercity which offers 'hop-on or hop-off' travel on New Zealand's largest coach network and can be conveniently bought in blocks of travel time starting from 15 hours for $147 per person.

Air New Zealand Holidays General Manager, Rohan Moss said the summer in the North Island and winter in the South Island remained the peak travel times for Australian bookings.

"We're finding that following Air New Zealand's move last year to drop the cost of airfares to New Zealand so substantially - up to 36% on some routes - that people are using the savings on the ground component of their trip, be it staying for longer or upgrading to better accommodation.

"So we've added more apartment style accommodation into the brochure particularly in Auckland and Queenstown for people wanting to stay longer.

"Fly-Drive packages remain our most popular package choice and our program has four car rental companies to choose from with prices starting from just $28 a day or the option of renting a motorhome through Maui, Britz or Pacific Horizon.

"This year we have also included two pages full of suggested self-drive itineraries ranging from three to nine days exploring all of New Zealand's most popular tourist trails."

Other new features include:

* Dedicated page for Auckland finer accommodation including four properties and preview of new Sky City Grand set to open in April 2005.

 * Additional page for Rotorua accommodation in response to strong demand from Australian travellers in this region.

* More Wellington sightseeing options than ever before and three new sightseeing products in Christchurch

* A new two-page dedicated section on the Fox and Franz Josef region - again due to strong demand and popularity amongst Australian travellers.

* A combined unique accommodation and golf section.

* Dedicated cruising page offering both overnight and day cruises

Consumers can order a copy of the new brochure by calling Air New Zealand Holidays on 1300 365 525 or contact your local travel agent.

Travel agents can contact Templar for copies of the new brochure or call Air New Zealand Holidays on 1300 365 747.

Website: www.airnewzealand.com.au