Earlier this month, Wotif.com released: Kiwi domestic travellers’ favourite destinations in 2010.
The annual press release by Wotif.com has been an extremely successful branding exercise that gives Wotif.com several bites at free publicity as media in each geographical location put their own spin on the results.
While the rankings are of interest, we look forward to the unqualified, indignant outbursts from tourism folk that have trouble discerning between blinkered self-belief of their locale's desirability and the actual nights that visitors choose to stay in their region.
Paul Davis, that that was head of Nelson Tasman Tourism succinctly displayed his ignorance on the significance of measuring actual guest nights by a leading OTA and the validity of Wotif.com as an accommodation distribution channel on this blog last year.
This year, it is Denis Callesen's turn to be somewhat sniffy at Wotif's latest regional league tables:
The Mount Cook Alpine Village Ltd general manager of tourism said the list appeared to be based on population.So what are the top 20 New Zealand destinations?
"A lot of the wotif-based selling is cheapest common denominator, which is not what we are about. We're into quality, not bottom-feeding.
"There are statistics, statistics and damned lies," he said.
He did not want to say just how many tourists stayed in the park annually, but said 300,000 visited each year.
| DESTINATION | 2010 | 2009 |
| Auckland | 1 | 1 |
| Wellington | 2 | 3 |
| Christchurch | 3 | 2 |
| Queenstown | 4 | 4 |
| Rotorua | 5 | 5 |
| Dunedin | 6 | 6 |
| Taupo | 7 | 7 |
| Hamilton | 8 | 8 |
| Napier | 9 | 9 |
| Palmerston North | 10 | 10 |
| Nelson | 11 | 11 |
| Paihia | 12 | 14 |
| Tauranga | 13 | 13 |
| Wanaka | 14 | 16 |
| Te Anau | 15 | 12 |
| New Plymouth | 16 | 15 |
| Hanmer Springs | 17 | 17 |
| Invercargill | 18 | 20 |
| Blenheim | 19 | 19 |
| Franz Josef Glacier | 20 | - |
