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Tourism boost for Kiwis with World Cup win
New Zealand upset Japan and South Africa to claim the right to stage the 2011 Rugby World Cup, the world’s third-biggest sports event by television audience.
New Zealand beat Japan, the bookmakers’ choice, in the final round of voting by the International Rugby Board council after South Africa was eliminated earlier today. The New Zealanders, who hosted and won the first World Cup in 1987, boast the world’s top-ranked national team and are the favorites to win the 2007 tournament in France.
“This is an enormous honor and a great privilege but also an enormous responsibility,” Jock Hobbs, chairman of the New Zealand Rugby Football Union, told reporters in Dublin. “It’s a proud day to be a Kiwi.”
The 2003 event, which had 3.4 billion TV viewers, was worth $289 million to the Australian economy. About 20,000 British and Irish fans spent $82 million in New Zealand during June and July this year tracking the combined British Isles touring team, according to Auckland-based tourism consultant Horwath Asia Pacific Ltd. The World Cup comprises 20 countries, and included nations from Georgia to Uruguay two years ago.
“The council members here today have had more detail on the tenders than any previous council, they were in possession of all the facts and they made a collected decision,” said IRB and RWC Chairman Dr Syd Millar
“The people of New Zealand will, of course, embrace this, it’s such a rugby-loving public, but the same could have been said for South Africa and Japan, and that’s the great thing now about how far Rugby World Cup has come. It’s a huge occasion.”
Of course, Australia will benefit as well, as many of the travelling rugby community will no doubt take the time to hop across the ditch on the way home.
Graham Muldoon
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