A New Zealand tourism campaign targeting Australian visitors has been ridiculed for sounding like a clearance sale slogan and for being tone-deaf amid widespread public service job cuts and record numbers of New Zealanders moving overseas.
The government launched its “Everyone must go!” campaign on Sunday, in a bid to encourage Australian holiday-makers to visit New Zealand. The NZD$500,000 campaign will run on radios and social media in Australia between February and March.
“What this Tourism New Zealand campaign says to our Aussie mates is that we’re open for business, there are some great deals on, and we’d love to see you soon,” said Louise Upston, the tourism minister.
But the tagline – set against photographs of people sightseeing – quickly became the subject of derision inside New Zealand, with opposition politicians and social media users likening it to a clearance sale advertisement, a marketing campaign for the apocalypse, or a desperate plea for access to the lavatory.
The Green Party’s tourism spokesperson, Celia Wade-Brown, told national broadcaster RNZ the tagline “might refer to the need for toilets in some of our high-tourist spots. I mean, the queues are ridiculous”.
Responding to the criticism, a spokesperson for the minister told the Guardian that Upston was “very pleased” with the campaign and said it had attracted positive feedback from tourism operators and a marketing expert.
The tourism campaign is the latest in the government’s attempt to attract tourists, digital nomads and overseas investors to New Zealand to boost the economy. Prior to the pandemic, tourism was New Zealand’s largest export industry and delivered $40.9bn to the country. The most recent figures show those numbers are creeping back up, with tourism bringing in $37.7bn in 2023.
Australia is New Zealand’s largest tourism market, making up roughly 44% of international visitors a year. Visitor numbers are sitting at roughly 88% of pre-pandemic rates.
“The number of Australian arrivals in New Zealand increased by more than 90,000, up from 1.27 million to 1.36 million over the past year, but we know there’s more room to grow,” Upston said in a release.
New Zealand’s overseas tourism campaigns have a long history of attracting both praise and criticism. The award-winning 100% Pure New Zealand promotion - now one of the world’s longest-running tourism campaigns - is lauded for its catchiness but often scrutinised against New Zealand’s inconsistent environmental credentials.
Labour’s tourism spokesperson Cushla Tangaere-Manuel told RNZ while she broadly supported growing tourism, the latest tourism tagline was tone-deaf at a time when the coalition government is disestablishing thousands of roles across the public sector in a major cost-cutting drive.
“The irony of that messaging is: that’s how Aotearoa New Zealanders are feeling right now – there have been so many cuts,” Tangaere-Manuel said.
Some critics said the tagline was tactless for sounding like a directive to New Zealanders to leave the country amid record high departure rates.
“If I was in a [government] seeing record emigration I simply would not pick “everyone must go” as a slogan,” said one social media user.
Others took the opportunity to turn the campaign back on the government.
“The upside of the gormless “everyone must go” slogan is that by rights it should be easy to invert for election posters and protest signs …. Done. Dusted. And their own fault,” wrote a BlueSky user.
