TOURISM AND NEW ZEALAND

While Monday this week (Queen’s Birthday in Australia) officially marked the opening of Australian ski season, it looks again like tens of thousands of Aussies will be venturing over the ditch to New Zealand when our major ski fields open at the end of this month.

New Zealand’s ski resorts receive approximately a quarter of their annual tourism from Australian visitors, last year totaling 70,000 Aussie holidaymakers, reports the Dominion Post. This figure is increasing by 20 percent each year, due to better and more reliable skiing this side of the Tasman.

New Zealand is leading the world with advances in environmental sustainability, as demonstrated at last weeks World Environmental Day in Wellington. New Zealand increasingly attracts international tourists committed to sustainable eco-tourist travel options, as we are privy to several tour operators determined to leave a smaller footprint on the globe.

Luxury tour companies such as Green Realm Travel offer tours on the New Zealand roads which are the cutting edge in comfort and environmental standards. This company has built their coaches based on the eco-friendly MAN A67 Euro 4 coach chassis, which uses progressive technology that reduces fuel consumption, exhaust-gas emissions and noise. The particle filter system in the engine make these coaches arguably the cleanest diesels in the world.

Image from Flickr.