TIA welcomes the release today by the Hon. Matt Doocey, the Tourism and Hospitality Minister, of the Strategic Business Plan of the Tourism Data Leadership Group.

This marks a major step to improve the provision of quality data to support decision-making on and about the tourism industry, New Zealand’s second-largest export industry.

With the plan in place and several important projects defined, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment will work to implement these over the period ahead. Projects include new data on domestic travel, short-term rental accommodation, visitor volumes and flows, and community sentiment, and a new Tourism Data Partnership Fund has been established to support initiatives within the sector itself.

This is a major milestone, and we appreciate the government’s continued support for this programme, and for the new data that the programme will generate. This is a major step in advancing Tourism 2050 – a Blueprint for Impact that identified ‘Power up Data and Research’ as one of its ten Actions.