Christchurch's "shaky" tourism: How to rebuild a destination

Research papers, Lincoln University

Modern cities are surprisingly dependent on tourism and competition among them for tourist dollars—both domestically and internationally—can be extreme. New Zealand’s second city, Christchurch, is no exception. In 2009, tourism reportedly earned $2.3 billion and accounted for more than 12 per cent of the region’s employment. Then came a series of devastating earthquakes that claimed 185 lives and decimated the city’s infrastructure. More than 10,000 earthquakes and aftershocks have radically altered Christchurch’s status as a tourism destination. Two years on, what is being done to recover from one of the world’s largest natural disasters? Can the “Garden City” reassert itself as a highly-desirable Australasian destination with a strong competitive advantage over rivals that have not been the target of natural disasters.

A San Franciscan view of Christchurch

Audio, Radio New Zealand

Spud Hilton knows what it's like to feel the fear of a large scale earthquake. As the Travel Editor of the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper, he lives in a city on a fault line. Spud Hilton has just published an article in the San Francisco Chronicle about the status of Christchurch as a tourist destination and as a city that must rebuild, rethink and reinvent itself.