Organic Boost to NZ Tourism

10
Apr

The Hippy Gourmet tours New Zealand, Yummy food for the tummy, the soul, and the planet!

Organic Explorer, New Zealand’s first green travel guide has been commissioned by an American TV company to facilitate a seven episode tour of this country’s gourmet organic delights.

Organic Living TV arrives in New Zealand next week to film episodes for their hit TV show The Hippy Gourmet. They have already filmed gourmet excursions in over 40 countries and the programmes reach over 34 million homes each week across 162 PBS stations, syndicated commercial stations and through a direct partnership with Google and YouTube.

Besides focusing on local food specialities in spectacular settings, 50 per cent of the show’s time is spent in highlighting local tourism experiences and businesses in the surrounding region.

“This exciting opportunity is just the shot in the arm sustainable New Zealand tourism needs right now in the American market,” says Organic Explorer director, Leonie Johnsen. “It is important that creative opportunities be taken to showcase New Zealand in one of our biggest and most diverse markets like the United States and this is a fantastically cost-effective way of highlighting the growing number of our organic/sustainable tourism operations to a receptive audience. “

A typical station will air and re-run each episode 6-8 times over a three-year period so there is enormous value in New Zealand sustainable tourism being in the spotlight for such an extended time frame.
Once they see for themselves the scale of what is available, I am confident the show’s producers will want to return to film places they miss this time around,” she said.

The film crew will be hosted at eco-lodges from Northland to Canterbury. While the filming is focused on preparing and presenting gourmet vegan, vegetarian and sustainable seafood dishes, local cultural tourism experiences, ecotourism excursions and gorgeous visual locations are also included in the mix.

In all more than 30 tourism businesses will be showcased.

For more information

Hippy Gourmet

Organic Explorer

Our blog story November 2008