The Mood of the NZ traveller survey gives us a unique insight into Kiwi leisure time.
The survey was carried out by Fly Buys and Colmar Brunton, it revealed some interesting information about New Zealander’s travel patterns and the Kiwi lifestyle that so many immigrants move to NZ to experience.
In reality Kiwis don’t enjoy the great outdoors as much as you’d think they do and are held back from doing more by lack of money, work and other commitments. When they do travel they’re highly likely to go to one of the major cities and use cars to do so. Their most likely activity is to visit friends and family and if they go abroad the most popular destination is Australia (no doubt to visit friends and family over there).
Only a small percentage intend going to a rugby world cup game and even less are intending to travel to get there. More are likely to stay home and watch the matches on TV.
Q. What’s stopping people from travelling more in the next 6 months? (based on those who’d like to travel more)
Finances 73%
Too busy at work 49%
Family commitments 30%
Don’t have enough leave 17%
Too busy outside work 17%
Other 2%
In the last 6 months Kiwis mainly took overnight leisure trips by
Car 74%
Plane 20%
Bus 2%
Sea 2%
Train 1%
Other 2%
And when they get there the most likely activity will be to see Friends and family – 73%
Q. Are you planning on doing any skiing/snowboarding in the next 6 months
Yes, day trips 7%
Yes, weekends/overnight 7%
Yes, more than one night 4%
NZ destination hot spots for an autumn/winter holiday, surprisingly Kiwis flock to the 3 major cities in preference to the great outdoors:
1st Wellington
2nd Christchurch
3rd Auckland
4th Queenstown
5th Nelson
World destination hot spots for an autumn/winter holiday
1st Australia
2nd USA
3rd UK
4th Fiji
5th Raratonga
Queens Birthday Weekend intentions
intending to stay at home 48%
Intending to go away for at least one night 20%
Undecided 32%
12% of New Zealanders are planning to attend games at the Rugby World Cup, but only 5% are intending to travel to them. The most popular places are
Auckland 58%
Wellington 36%
Hamilton 28%
Christchurch 27%
Rotorua 9%
Napier 8%
Whangarei 7%
Nelson 7%
Palmerston North 3%
New Plymouth 2%
E2NZ.org 
The main difference is the UK doesnt mis-sell itself on a illusory lie. Yes all coutries have their positives and negatives, but NZ is in mass denial of theirs and worse deliberatly purports a lie.
Dave (Acerbater) has just been banned from reddit. Careful e2nz he’s looking for a new place to troll.
Why so negative? Seriously??? I mean, are you all migrants who didn’t do your research or do you just like moaning? I am writing this from the UK, where I live now, and I am moving to NZ later this year. I can’t wait. I think maybe you’ve lost sight of what life is like elsewhere……
I work very hard and have little to no leisure time because of it. I earn a fair bit above the national average but I have no disposable income because I spend it all on over-priced things I need, like food, electricity, car travel etc. When I do go on holiday it is by car, and always to see friends and family – I mean, they are the people I want to see and how else am I meant to get there, jet pack? Who flies abroad more than once every few years? Seriously? I grew up not having any fish and chips, and the once or twice a year we went to the cinema we snuck in food we brought from home because we couldn’t afford to buy anything at the cinema. And don’t get me started on those questions in your “lifestyle survey” – skiing in the next 6 months? I’ve never skied, ever! Driving on my next holiday? Obviously! What’s stopping me travelling more in the next 6 months? Try money, work, other commitments, not enough leave and every other bloody option you listed, I’m lucky to be going travelling at all. Media control? Ever heard of Rupert Murdoch or Silvio Berlusconi? Child abuse? Jimmy Saville! Binge culture? You’ve never been to West Street in Sheffield! Contaminated nature? Try and find the bloody nature here first!
Tell you what, if you hate NZ so much come and live here, put up with all the same stuff you moan about, but add to the list too much rain, less sun, constant wind and cold, mass unemployment, no pensions, a breaking NHS, falling wages and rising prices, insane levels of pollution, overcrowding, obesity, and worsening racism to the list.
Get some perspective – everywhere has problems, and the problems you listed are one’s that every single country shares. At least you’ve got some nice things to be happy about.
[Deleted. “Roly” aka Dave from Kaikoura you’re banned, get over it. Move on with your life. Admin]
http://culture-shock.me/country/NZ anyone been culture shocked in NZ? only propaganda here at this url. needs some fresh air
http://www.closeronline.co.uk/2014/05/hunt-for-drug-dealers-after-cat-drags-home-bag-of-cannabis Kiwi cat drags home bag of weed
Here in Northland the papers are full of Kiwi exodus stories, shops closing, record-breaking numbers leaving for Australia, and people having their electrical bills cut off because they cannot afford the latest hike just in time for winter and before it’s even cold enough to put the heaters on! Imagine how bad it will be when people start to crank up their heaters. But you do not see these stories on the Internet. I went looking for them after seeing them in the newspapers and could not find them. I am telling you, they manage their bad news like Nazis.
You are so right! I do understand why kiwi media like to keep all the bad news hidden, but you will find the stories you are looking for, constantly updated here: https://flipboard.com/@nzorator/the-truth-about-new-zealand-alsnrsc4y?
http://nominister.blogspot.com/2011/08/ms-turei-please-define-child-poverty.html
the bottom line is set pretty low here! Oh, no, actually they won’t set a bottom line. Because then people would know. I have heard many hardship stories that curled my hair, from the over-60s. No wonder they have no sympathy for migrants from the UK, Canada, US, Europe. But they can’t compare themselves to First World countries, so why do they keep trying to make themselves out as First World? They should settle for Second World status embrace it, be honest. They don’t know how lucky they are. Compared to the rural Andaman Islands or somewhere like that.
http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?p=9508819
They are recommending you make more than 80K a year to live here. Well,
I am a single parent of two and get by on 40K a year NZD with no assistance, and it is hard. I buy days-old baked goods, on-sale produce, and older meat as well. Food is astronomical. 100 NZD will fill your petrol tank or buy you about 5 days’ food. We do little travel and take one vacation a year. We buy secondhand clothing. Monthly electric is roughly 150 averaged to include the higher winter months. That is if you heat only one or two rooms and crouch in them for months, as we do. We do not manage to save anything – rented housing is 1200 a month. Medical, car repairs for old used car and other expenses eat anything we would otherwise put aside to save.
This is NOT a lifestyle, I am sorry. It has nothing to do with material goods and everything to do with having to work very hard and then spend it all on overpriced life necessities. New Zealand is not worth this as a destination.
You had better enjoy looking at scenery, because you can’t afford to do the simple things you used to do at home without having to budget to a batshit crazy degree. One recent article about the new Harry Potter movie quoted one mum as spending easily over $100 for a family of four plus a snack and drink, and could only go once or twice a year.
‘Cheese is a luxury’
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/food/news/article.cfm?c_id=206&objectid=10712130
Counsellor Sylvia Jennings has spent years helping other people resolve their deep seated personal problems. But it’s the skyrocketing cost of living that has forced the silver haired 56-year-old from Otahuhu to dramatically change her own life.
She’s dispensed with what she now considers luxury items, such as good-quality eggs, cheddar cheese, drinking chocolate and biscuits, and shops strictly by price – and nutritional value.
“I’ve downsized my shop,” says Jennings, who shares a home with her adult son. “Where I used to spend $150 to $200 a week I now spend $60 to $80.
As for those staples of the Kiwi diet, she hasn’t had a roast for about six years – lamb is too expensive and she thinks the best meat is being exported.
Friday night fish’n’chips were part of growing up in New Zealand for Jennings-but she hasn’t had them for more than a year. It is sad, she says, that such rites of passages for Kiwi kids are being lost.
There is bird song in the NZ bush? there must be somewhere left that’s not bombarded with 1080 or brodifacoum!
Muzzerino, another blog I follow, just put a “NZ flavoured” Twining’s tea ad up. (@Muzzerino, thanks!) Unfortunately, the youtube account where the clip was put up was deleted, but you can still see this ad at
https://www.twinings.co.nz/#/?page=home
It shows an ivory-complexioned young woman in a cr*ppy London bedsit looking out her window at the grey dingy blocks of flats, deciding to sip the new “NZ flavour” of Twining’s tea and then being carried away to the sunshiny fantasy land she’d rather be in. ROFL.
“Inspired by birdsong in the bush” it says? One Australian friend here in Godzone said the one thing she missed the most about Oz was all the birdsong in the morning. It was aurally dead-as here by comparison with Australia. I have been to both places, and lived in the bush, and I can vouch for that.
There is also the New Zealand Springs dishwasher detergent (wtf) a friend pointed me to
http://dishwasherdetergentreviews.co.cc/cascade-4x-concentrated-new-zealand-springs-scent-actionpacs-20-count
The only reason I can think of New Zealand branding itself as a smell or flavour (of the “fresh natural category” along with lemony, pure, spring, cleansing, young, breezy, green, etc. and all that total rot) is that some greedy palms were greased to take Brand New Zealand marketing to the next level. Next thing you know they will be coining their own shade of green.
More annoying and deceptive propaganda of the paradise escape variety.
They use NZ imagery to sell lamb in the EU
http://www.inderscience.com/search/index.php?action=record&rec_id=14983&prevQuery=&ps=10&m=or
“The New Zealand lamb-marketing scenario supported the heavy use of country of origin images by specialist marketing boards for niche products”.
http://nzexporter.co.nz/2010/09/nz-lamb-more-sustainable-than-welsh-rival/
As natureshopnz remarks on its site, “The natural image of New Zealand is a compelling sales instrument”.
Not that this hasn’t been going on a long time. Who knows how many British gels read descriptions of green hills, sheep stations and manly men in the books of authors such as Essie Summers and thought they would be moving to a dream life?
http://www.squidoo.com/Essie_Summers_vintage_romance_books
Only to find it was hard, lonely and dangerous. They had to wrap their breasts in plastic to stop wool worms from digging into them. They would have little female company and support. They would work long hours feeding and beering mobs of strange rough shearers, far from medical care, books or culture. All creature with no comforts!
This cash-hungry little chippie of a nation will never stop flashing its wares. The Internet has permitted her to broaden her potential revenue with greater exposure. Luckily, that same Internet can host sites like your own, offering a few bracing sips of reality. Ever smelled a sheep?
Always remember that a lot of things have got a “spin” depending on what image you want to portray.
Too broke-ass to get electronics or play videogames? Then you are “enjoying nature’s majesty and taking a stand against consumerism”.
Overseas New Zealander? “Not escaping from student loans, I’m getting an overseas experience and enjoying other cultures” (which is weird since a huge number of international students GO to New Zealand and would be happy to elaborate on their cultures to a polite audience)
Not telling international students about necessary forms and information they need to know to compete fairly in the domestic market for part time jobs? “They’re all grown up, it isn’t our job to babysit them” (that’s rich, considering that in my classes the domestic students were the ones complaining about not having enough material to read from).
Taking a stand against the Kiwi relational aggression towards migrants? “They have to adapt to our culture, and if they don’t like it they can leave!” (Meantime these people with the lazy reasoning are the ones on benefits, claiming student allowances while living with their parents, or doing other peoples’ work for money WHILE calling international students useless and feckless)