Tourism Industry Aotearoa chief executive Rebecca Ingram sat down with Karryon’s Matt Leedham at TRENZ26 in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland, to talk Aussie demand, the wellness moment and the values story driving New Zealand tourism growth.
It’s 9am, up on level 60 of the Auckland Sky Tower, and the city and harbour below look like a living diorama. With a bluebird sky overhead, the Waitematā harbour is flat and sparkling, and the Hauraki Gulf islands are strung out beyond like stepping stones.
Tourism Industry Aotearoa (TIA) chief executive Rebecca Ingram is at the glass, pointing at the miniature boats below and working out which are ferrying the many pre-TRENZ fam groups out across the harbour to explore the surrounding islands.
New Zealand tourism has real momentum right now, and Aussies are leading the charge, the TIA chief executive tells me. Wellness is having its moment. And the values story underneath it all is doing more heavy lifting than ever.
“There’s been a considerable and concerted effort over the last twelve months to really inject some energy into our tourism growth,” Ingram says. “The government has invested further in Tourism New Zealand, and that initially had a very strong Australian focus.”
The numbers back the mood. More than 1.5 million Australians travelled to New Zealand in 2025, with the Aussie share of inbound now sitting at 44 per cent and climbing, trans-Tasman capacity up 8 per cent across the first half of 2026, and the Australian dollar at multi-year highs against the Kiwi. Trans-Tasman trade sentiment is the most upbeat it’s been in years.
Despite current market uncertainty, Ingram says Earlybird ski sales out of Queenstown for the upcoming Winter season are tracking ahead, too, with Aussies driving the lift.
A coordinated push, not a single lever
What’s behind the positivity? Ingram credits a layered effort across central government, regional tourism organisations, airlines and operators. Increased airline connectivity has added more ports across the ditch, and visa-setting changes have opened other markets.
“It’s central government, it’s local government through the regional tourism organisations, and it’s the industry themselves all working together,” Ingram says.
On the TRENZ floor, the results are showing: This year, 1,200 delegates, including 313 New Zealand operators and 379 international buyers from 27 countries, are in attendance for the three-day event.
The showcase event also features 35 Māori tourism businesses, up from last year, with food and connection to nature being key themes at every booth.
Tourism in New Zealand is a feeling, not a feature
The next morning, at TIA’s industry briefing on day two of TRENZ26, Ingram returned to those themes for the wider room. The Sky Tower made an appearance. “I had the pleasure of hosting a journalist up the Sky Tower yesterday morning,” she told the room. “It took our breath away.”
New Zealand isn’t a list of features, she says.
“New Zealand creates a very particular kind of feeling. It’s something to do with scale. The landscape is vast relative to the human.”
“There is also a very strong connection to Māori culture and Mātauranga Māori [the Māori body of knowledge, custom and worldview]. The connection to the land means this isn’t just a fad. It’s actually part of who we are.”
“That feeling is our competitive advantage. In a world becoming more synthetic, more mediated by screens, the demand for it is not decreasing. It’s increasing.”
“It doesn’t disappear when things get tough”
Talk turns to the Tiaki Promise. Launched in 2018, the visitor pledge asks travellers to protect New Zealand’s land, sea, nature and culture while they’re here. Tiaki is Māori for “to care for”. Ingram tells me how proud she was to be involved in helping build it.
“Tiaki is very dear to me,” she says. “It’s not a campaign, it doesn’t just disappear when things get tough, because it’s genuine.”
“When we’re welcoming people to New Zealand, we want it to be an exchange,” Ingram says.
“We’re going to look after you. We want you to look after this place. That’s actually what Tiaki is all about. It’s not us giving you a list of rules. It’s actually us welcoming you in, giving you some insight into what it is to be in New Zealand, and saying, hey, it’s reciprocal.”
The deeper anchor, she says, is Kaitiakitanga. Care for place, care for people, guardianship.
Eight years on since Tiaki launched, is it still resonating? I ask.
“I’ve heard of people who’ve got it as a tattoo,” she says. “For some visitors, it’s become synonymous with their trip to New Zealand.”
The event itself wears the values
Tiaki isn’t just messaging on a wall. It runs through the TRENZ event itself: named food producers, careful waste management and offsetting, and almost zero physical exhibitor giveaways.
“We are very conscious of creating an environment that expresses who we are as a country, and that TRENZ needs to pick up all the different layers of what we care about, and sustainability is just infused throughout it,” Ingram said.
For the Australian trade, the read is direct: capacity up, wellness on the floor, values front and centre.
Her message to travellers and the trade?
“Come visit,” Ingram says. “Whether you’ve been to New Zealand before or not, I can guarantee that there’s something here that you’ll love.”
Why such optimism for New Zealand Tourism, someone had asked her recently?
“Well, because I know that I’m never underselling it,” she says.
Read our TRENZ26 coverage:
- TRENZ26: Nine years on, Auckland reclaims the trade’s biggest stage
- TRENZ26: Auckland has its mojo back as 1.5 million+ Aussies lift New Zealand tourism
- Perth-Christchurch comeback: Air New Zealand restarts three South Island routes
TRENZ is New Zealand’s premier annual travel trade event, hosted by Tourism Industry Aotearoa (TIA). It brings together hundreds of international buyers, media, and partners with New Zealand tourism operators to showcase the country and grow inbound visitor business. Australia is consistently the largest source market. Visit trenz.co.nz
KARRYON UNPACKS: With the dollar, the seats and the storytelling all lining up, New Zealand has rarely been an easier sell. The competitive edge isn’t on a feature list. It’s the feeling.
