{"id":21969,"date":"2011-03-09T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-03-09T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/new-zealand-reassures-travellers-3\/"},"modified":"2011-03-09T22:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-03-09T22:00:00","slug":"new-zealand-reassures-travellers-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/2011\/03\/new-zealand-reassures-travellers-3\/","title":{"rendered":"New Zealand Reassures Travellers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i>source:<\/i><\/p>\n<div style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.breakingtravelnews.com\/\" style=\"clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" height=\"55\" src=\"https:\/\/lh6.googleusercontent.com\/-jngROAmGav4\/TWbU6Om_ZlI\/AAAAAAAAM_A\/GBeL8OiSST4\/s200\/btn%2521.jpg\" width=\"200\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>Tourism New Zealand has moved to reassure visitors the country remains open for business following an earthquake in the city of Christchurch in late February.<\/p>\n<p>As many as 160 people are thought to have died in the incident, with thousands of buildings set to be demolished after being deemed unsafe.<\/p>\n<p>However, Kevin Bowler, chief executive of Tourism New Zealand, has pointed out events are \u201clocalized\u201d to Christchurch and its surrounding environs, with the rest of the country open, welcoming and operating as normal<br \/>\u201cOur sympathy and concern is extended to Cantabrians, visitors to the area on February 22nd and to business owners, including tourism operators, affected by the earthquake,\u201d said Bowler.<br \/>\u201cWe have been overwhelmed by the kindness and support which New Zealand has received from the United Kingdom and our sincere thanks goes to everyone who has been involved over the last two weeks, we really appreciate your help.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tourism New Zealand<br \/>Tourism New Zealand\u2019s immediate priority after the earthquake was to provide support and help ensure travellers in Christchurch, travellers currently in New Zealand and those intending to travel to New Zealand had accurate and up-to-date travel information.<br \/>\u201cFrom a tourism industry perspective, other than Christchurch city, New Zealand is very much open as normal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur tourism businesses across the country, and especially in the wider Canterbury area, have been making alternative arrangements for those who had planned to stay in Christchurch and will continue to do over the coming months,\u201d added Bowler.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is too soon to say how long the recovery and rebuilding of Christchurch will take, however, we know that the determined Cantabrian spirit will be a key factor to help rebuild the city.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The New Zealand tourism industry\u2019s next priority is to ensure tourism remains strong and maintains its contribution to the economy.<\/p>\n<p>International tourism contributes NZ$9.5 billion of foreign exchange to the New Zealand economy each year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNew Zealand is used to welcoming large numbers of international tourists each year including about 235,000 from the United Kingdom,\u201d said Bowler.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA strong economy is what we need to ensure Christchurch can get back on its feet as quickly as possible and tourism is vital to this.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith this in mind we would like to ask the UK tourism industry\u2019s support in encouraging visitors to continue to visit our beautiful country,\u201d concluded Bowler.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>source: Tourism New Zealand has moved to reassure visitors the country remains open for business following an earthquake in the city of Christchurch in late February. As many as 160 people are thought to have died in the incident, with thousands of buildings set to be demolished after being deemed unsafe. However, Kevin Bowler, chief [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21969\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}