The Wellington Cable Car doubled its souvenir sales in the space of a year. Photo: LDR / Justin Wong / The Post
A $10 Wellington cable car-themed keychain is selling like hotcakes, while the big chill grips the capital.
It comes as the famous cable cable, one of Wellington's most popular attractions, struggles to meet ticket sales targets amid lower cruise ship visitors.
In its latest report to the Wellington City Council, the cable car's council-owned operating company Wellington Cable Car Limited said it sold 3056 items from October to December 2025, recording a 92% jump from the same period the previous year. The sales pulled in $22,000 in those three months, doubling that from the same time in 2024.
With 588 of them snapped up, the $10 keychain is the hottest cable car-branded souvenir, followed by postcards, a horizontal magnet, a Christmas decoration and the pen with a floating cable car.
Other souvenirs included diecast models, badges and even mints with the cable car emblazoned on the tin.
Chief executive Tansy Tompkins said staff at the Lambton Quay ticketing box window had been upselling passengers with souvenirs and they sold out a 2026 charity calendar of dogs at the cable car. The company also struck an exclusive retail deal with a Lambton Quay store to sell official merchandise through its shop and website.
Its recent push on merchandise was part of diversifying income sources in the face of falling passenger numbers from holidaymakers in a "volatile" cruise ship sector, which made up 30% of the cable car's revenue in 2024 but subsequently dropped to 20% last year.
"It's a small thing but we're trying to find revenue with all the cruise numbers down," Tompkins said. On a day where a cruise ship is docked in town, the cable car might top $20,000 in ticket sales and with another $1000 on souvenir.
The cable car's $954,000 revenue generated from ticket sales between October and December 2025 was $21,000 short of its target. It sold almost 228,000 tickets in the three months, or 12,000 less than targeted.
The capital's bright-red cable car that has climbing up the hill from the city centre to Kelburn since 1902 was not the only council-owned tourist attraction to suffer from falling visitor numbers at the end of 2025.
Te Nukuao Wellington Zoo and Wheako Pōneke Experience Wellington, which runs Space Place and Wellington Museum, all could not hit their visitor targets for between October and December. They were blamed on bad weather and a struggling cruise ship market.
The cable car company's report added there could be new opportunities for paid in-car advertising after a "successful" trial in promoting the Michelangelo exhibition at Tākina convention centre at the cab's celling. It planned to continue giving all Victoria University of Wellington students living at the nearby Weir House and Everton Hall with a free five-trip cable car pass.
It also said the company updated adverse weather operating guidelines after last October's storms and it would now suspend operations if MetService issued any red weather warning.
Having available alternative transport options and the cable car's "relatively small" proportion of commuters - of which most would likely working from home during severe weather - meant any service cancellations would have minimal impact compared to safety risks, it said.
Local Democracy Reporting (LDR) is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air
