New Zealand Prime Minister John Key has unveiled the first backpacker marketing campaign for the country which will be launched on Australia’s east coast.  

The campaign, which will target the global youth market, was presented at the inaugural New Zealand Backpacker Conference recently. It aims to attract travellers who are already on the move as well as those planning to travel and will launch on the Australian eastern seaboard before being rolled out in Europe and the UK.

“Unlike say a cruise ship where the visitors first see NZ in their seventies and are unlikely to revisit, backpacking is a seed market for NZ tourism. Today’s backpackers are tomorrow’s family holiday makers, and in a generation’s time they return again as a grey gapper,” said conference convener, NZBackpack.com Director Daniel Shields.