The South Island campervan market

Abstract

As a rapidly growing part of the Free and Independent Traveller (FIT) segment of the total tourist market in New Zealand, the campervan segment has developed as an extension of the rental and tourist companies in New Zealand, in direct response to a new type of consumers needs and wants. As such, the industry has developed in a rather muddled and essentially unplanned fashion.

The New Zealand Tourist and Publicity Department (NZTP) and other senior representatives of the tourist industry have seen the need to learn more about the campervan industry and to ideally build and develop a database to aid decision-making in the future.

Given the limited scope and time of the study, I have endeavoured to establish the basic premises on which the industry operates, particularly the size of the market, the fleet numbers, length of hires, utilisation, who the hirers are, where they travel, what they do, where they stop, accommodation profiles, what facilities they use, what facilities they require, impressions of our roads, signposting, the campervan companies' service and finally what needs to be done to meet everybody's requirements.

This research is therefore required to build a database and provide some answers for NZTP and campervan companies for future planning. It is a preliminary assessment for NZTP in refining future research into this segment of the industry for the Department's own research programmes. It will also assist in building a database for the commercial sector of the campervan industry and to provide some answers for tourism resource planners/managers.