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Tourist Times began in Christchurch in 1976. Tourism was a relatively new industry back then and, other than those New Zealanders taking family holidays in the car, most tourists traveled with pre-booked arrangements or on structured tours. As confidence amongst travellers grew, an increasing number began touring more independently, choosing to make decisions as they went on where to go, what to see and where to stay. The idea behind Tourist Times was to inform and promote the now growing New Zealand tourism industry to those travellers.
As the number of free and independent travellers (FITs) increased, so too did the size of Tourist Times. Following rapid growth, by 1984 it had become necessary to get away from just one publication to cover the whole country. A more effective regional structure was set up - in effect, the country was divided into six Tourist Times regions. Six different operators were found and six regional Tourist Times publications began printing! Remarkably the agreements between the operators were all very casual. The various editions of Tourist Times were happily published right through until around 2005. By then it was clear that a more structured operating agreement was needed to protect what had become a nationally-recognised brand. So, a nationwide Tourist Times group (TTNG) was born to co-operatively oversee the regional structure, to foster some nationwide uniformity in the publications and to deal with the increasing needs of national operators. Today, each Tourist Times operator promises to abide by some simple and sensible rules, with the ultimate goal being nationwide recognition of each regional edition. This consistency in appearance between each edition also benefits the smallest to the biggest advertiser. But, in all other respects, the group remains as six independent owner-operators. Each is working in their own businesses, which happens to be in a co-operative, and each is having fun promoting all of New Zealand’s wonderful tourism assets to all those thousands of free and independent travellers.
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