WELLINGTON - Chinese living in Australia will be targeted in a New Zealand tourism campaign funded by the New Zealand government and China Travel Service, New Zealand Prime Minister and Tourism Minister John Key announced Thursday.

China Travel Service (NZ) Ltd was being given NZ$50,000 ($42,301) towards a year-long campaign in partnership with New Zealand Maori Tourism with a budget of NZ$100,000 ($84,602) to promote New Zealand as a holiday destination to the estimated 1.2 million Chinese in Australia.

"China Travel Service (NZ) Ltd will use their existing networks to market tourism experiences to Chinese Australians," Key said in a statement.

A document issued with the statement said Australia was New Zealand's largest visitor market, and within this market, Chinese residents were an untapped potential of a significant new visitor market.

"The Australian Chinese are perfect visitors to New Zealand because they have higher educations and incomes than the average Australian, and are likely to have developed English skills," said the document.

"China Travel Services has global networks and distribution channels to market and sell New Zealand tourism products. Their extensive marketing channels in Australia include Chinese TV, radio and newspapers that are already well adapted to meet the demands of this market segment."

The program would start this month and was expected to bring total economic benefits of NZ$6 million ($5.07 million) to New Zealand by 2017.

Key also announced the government was giving NZ$600,000 ($507,700) to the Canterbury Tourism Partnership to help rebuild the tourism sector in the earthquake-battered Canterbury region and to attract more tourists from China.

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