New Zealand: 'Wrong way' tourism video pulled from web

Unlike this van in a Tourism NZ video, cars drive on the left in New Zealand

A promotional video commissioned by New Zealand's tourism board has been pulled from YouTube because it features a camper van driving on the wrong side of the road.

The clip was made by an American producer, and Tourism New Zealand wants to speak to him before deciding what to do next, a spokesperson for the government-funded organisation told the New Zealand Herald. "We will seek to have a conversation about whether it's a re-post or whether it's essentially pulled," Deborah Gray said. At the time of writing, the video - viewed over 300,000 times before it was removed - has not re-appeared on the Tourism NZ YouTube channel. Grey later told the Stuff.nz news website that the error came after the video producer thought the flipped image "would look better". New Zealand's Tourism Ministry called it "a disappointing mistake."

In a similar slip-up, the rental company Hertz had to reverse an image on its website because it also featured a car driving on the right-hand side. The company's New Zealand country manager, Mark Righton, told the New Zealand Herald that the photo had come from Hertz's global website. "Obviously that's not a good one for Hertz.co.nz," he said. "We will get that fixed considering the current environment and trying to keep people safe," he added.

New Zealand uses the left-hand traffic system of common in many Commonwealth countries. Earlier this year, the country was hit by a spate of road accidents, some of them caused by tourists who had never driven on the left-hand side before.

This photo has since been reversed on the Hertz New Zealand Website

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