Fans Flock to Tolkien Trail

“Thanks to a bunch of elves, orcs and hobbits”, New Zealand is “one of this year’s most fashionable tourist destinations”. Experts believe the trilogy will boost NZ’s tourist industry by a third. On the edge we’ve always known, but now we’re showing up on the radar: “New Zealand has historically had an image problem. To put it bluntly, people have seen it as the dullest place on earth with more sheep than people. The more people go on the Tolkien trail, go trekking, go bungee-jumping and visit the winelands and come back and tell their friends how good it was, the better.”