The role of Hawke’s Bay Tourism is to ‘catch them’ (the visitor) and the role of the Hawke’s Bay tourism industry is to enrich the visitor experience making it so memorable while they are here they will spend more and return. The majority of Hawke’s Bay Tourism’s activity is undertaken outside the region – where our future visitors are.

Hawke’s Bay Tourism’s primary role is to bring visitors to Hawke’s Bay, through marketing, events, media and public relations, working with travel trade, and any other available channels that will engage with potential visitors to Hawke’s Bay.

Hawke’s Bay Tourism oversee and market three events: F.A.W.C! Food and Wine Classic, Spring Fling, and The Big Easy - each of which attract a growing number of visitors.

Tourism in Hawke’s Bay is quantified as economic benefit to the region from visitors. Whilst the typical 'tourism business' may be accommodation, activities or restaurants, the spend and interaction goes much further than that. Visitors spend money in our supermarkets, petrol stations, retail stores, buses and trains, that help keep our suppliers engaged and our people employed.

For example, a visitor buys a cup of coffee at a cafe. The shop owner uses part of that dollar to pay for the coffee itself, which was purchased from a local distributor. The distributor uses this money to pay the driver who delivered the coffee. The driver pays his household utility bills and the utility contracts for improved infrastructure. This utility contract employs maybe 20 construction workers. One morning on the way to work, the 20 workers stop by the very same coffee shop and each has a cup of coffee.

Statistics New Zealand provide Regional Tourism Organisations ( RTOs) with the Tourism Electronic Card Transactions (TECTs). These provide regional stakeholders with dollar estimates of card transactions made by visitors. In addition to providing data at an RTO level, it can also be viewed at a territorial authority level, by industry grouping, and by the visitors’ region or country of origin.

In a pre-COVID environment, approximately 70-75% of visitors to Hawke’s Bay were from domestic regions. They may visit to see friends and relatives, attend an event, a wedding or a conference or may purely be in the region to have a holiday.

Most visit during the summer months of December/January and February but increasingly visitors are coming in 'shoulder season months' like October/November and March/April.

Hawke's Bay's primary domestic markets include Wellington, Auckland, Manawatu, Bay of Plenty, Waikato and Gisborne Tairawhiti. 

Pre-COVID, our main international markets included Australia, North America, the United Kingdom, Germany and China.

Hawke's Bay is New Zealand's Food and Wine Country. Visitors can ‘taste Hawke’s Bay’ at our famous famers’ markets and roadside stalls, in our award-winning wineries, urban and luxury retreat restaurants, and at our 70+ wineries.

Other regional highlights include the year-round appeal of the easy-riding Hawke's Bay Trails, our Art Deco architecture and festivals, our increasingly popular calendar of events, a range of luxury experiences, and exploring our great outdoors.