Monday, January 4, 2016
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Call for Chinese to be added to local signs BY SUSAN SANDYS
SUSAN.S@THEGUARDIAN.CO.NZ
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Mid Canterbury businesses should consider adding Chinese language to signage, as visitor numbers from the country are set to skyrocket, says Experience Mid Canterbury. General manager Bruce Moffat was commenting following Statistics New Zealand releasing visitor arrival numbers for November, with 344,900 visitors from China, mainly holidaymakers, up 9600 or 35 per cent on the previous November. Numbers were increasing into Mid Canterbury alongside the rest of the country, and two new airline stops were adding to this. China Southern, the third largest airline in the world, began flying three direct flights per week from China into Christchurch on December 17, and
Air China had also recently started flying via Australia into Christchurch three times per week. “And right now the Chinese are absolutely in love with New Zealand.” The Asian credit card spend in Mid Canterbury for the year ending March for the past three years had been $2 million, and Mr Moffat expected that could double over the next year. Many tourists had traditionally gone to Auckland and Queenstown, but with those destinations busy many could not find accommodation there. Tourism New Zealand was therefore working on promoting the regions, as well as shoulder seasons, from which areas such as Mid Canterbury could benefit. Increasing daily numbers of Chinese were visiting the Ashburton i-SITE, and a local adventure tourism operator had
reported more than 70 per cent of its guests in a recent week being free and independent (FIT) travellers from China. “The FIT market is a very powerful one, particularly for us,” Mr Moffat said. Mr Moffat said it was important Mid Cantabrians made Chinese people feel welcome, and retained the district’s high standard of customer service. New Zealand as a whole could be a bit xenophobic, and levels of customer service in some areas were not perfect. He was working on a project to see signage in Mid Canterbury improve, and eventually over time would like to see other languages such as Chinese added to signs. Business operators could additionally improve their signage, for example a café operator could add the word café in Chinese to signage.
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