A campaign is underway to tell the rest of New Zealand that Nelson Tasman is open for business following the winter floods and it’s time they booked their summer holiday.
Nelson Regional Development Agency (NRDA) visitor destination manager, Craig Boodee, says an economic analysis estimated the region would lose about $18 million in visitor spend in the 12 months following the floods.
He got a snapshot of visitor perception just after the floods through an online survey of 400 people around New Zealand and 37 per cent said they would not consider visiting the region in spring because of the flooding. Respondents also noted the high cost of flights to the region was their main reason for not planning a trip.
“We usually have a spring campaign, and this one has had to be a bit turbo charged because of the flooding. We are super close to our tourism operators, so get to hear all those stories around some visitors delaying their travel until next year or are a bit uncertain about whether they should still come for spring and summer. So, we’re just trying to change that perception.”
The campaign, Feel the Warmth of Nelson Tasman, is about to ramp up and includes partnerships with Air New Zealand and Christchurch Airport to promote the region, plus tourism operator deals. Craig says the marketing campaign has been given a financial boost of $50,000 from the Government to help draw Kiwis back to the region following the floods. His goal with the campaign is to claw back as much of that $18 million as possible and will target Wellington, Auckland and particularly Christchurch, which has the most visitors to the region.
Though the floods hit mostly river valleys in Tasman, Craig says the floods cast a large shadow across the entire region. In Nelson, the main gateway to the region, he says conferences were cancelled during the state of emergency period and that continued when it was lifted due to the perception the floods might affect plans.
He says Golden Bay has also had some bookings cancelled because people thought they couldn’t get to the bay. Since the floods, he says, the Abel Tasman National Park is open and 95 per cent of the Great Taste Trail will be up and running by summer.
The message now, through the campaign, is draw those visitors back and get the region humming again.
Craig says visitors spent $753 million in the Nelson-Tasman region in the year to June 2025. Half of that is spent in tourism and hospitality, while the other half is in retail, supermarkets, petrol stations and similar.
“It has a flow-on effect.”
Around the time of the floods, Nelson-Tasman was named the number one region in the country for overall visitor satisfaction in 2024-2025.
