New Zealand tourist boom coming says report

The forecast by the Tourism Research Council indicated growth averaging 6.7 per cent a year, Tourism Minister Mark Burton said in a statement. Tourism Industry Association chief executive Glenys Coughlan warned the country, which has a population of 3.8 million, to prepare to handle nearly another one million visitors a year.

She said a strategy was being developed "to see that the expected growth of tourism can be managed in a sustainable way which will maintain our unique way of life and natural beauty, which is what brings people here in the first place".

(dpa)