New Zealand’s largest tourism business event, TRENZ, lands in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland, this week for the first time in nine years, with the impressive New Zealand International Convention Centre (NZICC) making its host debut. Karryon’s Matt Leedham reports from the North Island’s gateway city.
The last time TRENZ was held in Auckland, at ASB Showgrounds back in 2017, the city was on the cusp of one of its biggest chapters. Within weeks, Team New Zealand’s America’s Cup win would lock Auckland in as host of the 36th edition, triggering the Wynyard Quarter and waterfront overhaul that has redrawn the city’s visitor map ever since.
For Auckland, TRENZ’s return after nine years, including the pandemic, has been a long time coming.
This time, the City of Sails is rolling out the welcome (Auckland) blue carpet for more than 1,200 delegates, including 315 New Zealand operators and 379 international buyers from 27 countries, across three days of 16,000 pre-scheduled meetings from 19-21 May.
Buyers are flying in to TRENZ from nine of New Zealand’s top markets: Australia, China, Japan, Korea, India, the U.S, Canada, the United Kingdom and Germany.
The city’s cultural, events and destination agency, Tātaki Auckland Unlimited, alone is projecting an economic impact of NZ$3 million plus for the city off the back of this year’s event.
The trans-Tasman timing
As for a Trans-Tasman spotlight, the timing couldn’t be better. New Zealand was Australians’ most popular international destination in March 2026, with 138,040 short-term resident returns equal to 15.2 per cent of all Aussie outbound trips, according to the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics figures.
More than 1.5 million Australians travelled to New Zealand in 2025, up 10 per cent year-on-year, with the Aussie share of inbound now 44 per cent and climbing.
Despite ongoing Middle East tensions reshaping global aviation, capacity to New Zealand is still rising. Qantas Group has added more than 800,000 trans-Tasman seats over the past 12 months via Jetstar and Qantas, with almost 210,000 more coming next year across four routes. Air New Zealand will add 63,000 across its Brisbane routes, with a new direct Auckland-Western Sydney International service taking off from 26 October, when WSI opens its doors.
An Auckland reset, nine years in the making
Tātaki Auckland Unlimited Chief Executive Nick Hill says Auckland is not the city it was nine years ago.
“It’s fantastic to welcome TRENZ back to Auckland for the first time since 2017 and to showcase a city and region that has evolved significantly over the past decade,” Hill said.
“Auckland in 2026 is a very different place to the one delegates last visited. There’s fresh energy across the city, from transformed waterfront spaces and new accommodation to major infrastructure like the NZICC, which provides a world-class home for events like this.”
The NZ$1 billion ($AU920m) NZICC opened on 11 February. TRENZ is one of its first major international events, with the venue holding more than 4,500 delegates across 33 meeting spaces and a 2,850-seat theatre.
But the NZICC is just one piece of a much bigger Auckland reset. The NZ$5.5 billion ($AU5.1b) City Rail Link, New Zealand’s largest-ever transport infrastructure project, is on track to open in the second half of 2026, set to double the city’s rail capacity and reshape how visitors move between the airport, waterfront, CBD and Eden Park.
Auckland Airport is mid-way through a multi-billion-dollar terminal rebuild, with a new combined domestic jet terminal central to the programme. Add in fresh hotel stock from Park Hyatt to Hotel Britomart and InterContinental Auckland, plus a still-evolving Wynyard Quarter, and a clearer picture emerges.
Nine years on from the America’s Cup catalyst, Auckland is finally delivering on the destination pitch it has been making for a decade.
What the trade is buying
More than 340 buyers will get out on famils pre- and post-TRENZ, with 25 local operators running 22 itineraries across Auckland’s city centre, Waiheke Island, Matakana and the west coast. The product they tour this week will land in Australian agent training and consumer brochures over the next six months.
Running alongside TRENZ for the first time is the International Media Marketplace (IMM), connecting tourism operators with international travel journalists, including The Age, BBC Travel and Condé Nast Traveller.
“TRENZ gives us a powerful platform to position Auckland as more than a gateway for international buyers and media,” Hill said.
Originally known as Tourism Rendezvous New Zealand, TRENZ started in the 1960s as an annual travel trade show based in Auckland, with the earliest iterations hosting around 30 sellers and buyers. Today it is managed by Tourism Industry Aotearoa (TIA) on behalf of the Tourism Industry New Zealand Trust, with Tātaki Auckland Unlimited leading the region’s hosting in partnership with Auckland International Airport.
In 2025, TRENZ achieved Net Zero Carbon Event (Event Operations) certification in partnership with Ekos, offsetting 100 per cent of its event carbon footprint using certified carbon credits and supporting biodiversity conservation through certified projects in New Zealand and overseas.
Six decades on, TRENZ comes home again to Auckland: bigger, greener and ready for business in a new world-class venue.
KARRYON UNPACKS: Three trans-Tasman signals are aligning for TRENZ 2026, and they are meeting an Auckland that has finally done the infrastructure work to match the ambition. New Zealand sits at the top of the latest ABS outbound rankings, and aviation capacity into the country is rising. The trans-Tasman corridor is having a moment, and Auckland is right in the middle of it.
