$70 million in benefits? Really?

New Zealand gets $70 million in benefits from Royal tours? Really?

Late last year following the last Royal tour, Radio New Zealand reported that Tourism New Zealand claimed the 2014 Royal tour was worth $70 million to New Zealand. While many of us might enjoy the fun and excitement of the latest celebrity Royal couple, claims that the Royal tours are worth this much seems to be very overblown. It appears to simply be a way to justify funding Royal tours through Tourism NZ.

Tourism NZ stated that the figure has been reached by totalling up the “value” media coverage has to New Zealand, in terms of what it would cost if Tourism NZ were to buy the advertising themselves. Exactly how they get to that cost is not clear, nor is their method for counting the coverage.

So we’ve asked Tourism NZ under the Official Information Act 1982 to provide us with this information, via the exellent website FYI. You can follow our request on FYI, or we’ll be posting updates on this blog.