After the National Film Unit, before social media: Wellington tourism film’s urban narratives and production dynamics 1991–2008

ABSTRACT This article analyses the development of Wellington tourism film from 1991 to 2008, release years of Absolutely Positively Wellington and Spoil Yourself in Wellington TV commercials, respectively. While performing the textual analysis of five case studies released for domestic TV circulation, it examines their underlying tourism marketing and place-branding dynamics in the broader context of the political, institutional and cultural transformations that marked New Zealand and its capital city from the late 1980s onward. Such political and social context, characterised by the privatisation and sale of public assets and businesses, the transformation of public institutions into profit-driven corporations and the closure or downsizing of government departments and government-led institutions, coincided with the reorganisation of Wellington's economic, institutional and social assets, with the reshaping of the city's identity and with the redefinition of local tourism marketing strategies. This article argues that Wellington tourism film's institutional background started to be increasingly characterised by a process of growing and deepened interaction and partnership between local tourism bodies, creative agencies and private stakeholders. It also intends to trace the succession of different but interconnected urban narratives that informed local tourism film production, before the contemporary narratives about Wellington as a ‘creative city’ took hold.