9 Sep 2014

Chinese show's $80m of advertising

7:07 am on 9 September 2014

Exposure from a hugely popular Chinese reality show being shot in New Zealand could be worth tens of millions of dollars of advertising, Tourism New Zealand says.

New Zealand was the first international destination in the show, which followed five celebrity fathers and their children on an adventure to mystery destinations.

The show spent the past week filming in the central North Island.

Tourism New Zealand and Air New Zealand worked together to get 200 minutes of the country's landscapes, people and activities on Chinese television later this month.

Tourism New Zealand chief executive Kevin Bowler said about 300 million Chinese watched the first series.

Mr Bowler said the cost of an equivalent amount of advertising could be worth more than $80 million.

He said that the show would air in China later this month.

"So we would anticipate seeing some improvements in traffic from China certainly over the next few months and we'd expect to see a record number of Chinese here this summer."