What started with two adventurous New Zealanders experimenting with elastic cords in the 1980s would eventually help transform Queenstown into one of the world’s great adventure tourism destinations.
AJ Hackett and Henry van Asch pioneered commercial bungy jumping, taking an idea tested through years of experimentation and turning it into an experience that has since attracted millions of thrill-seekers around the world.
An idea without a rulebook
Back in the 1980s, paying money to jump from a bridge attached to an elastic cord was far from an established tourism business.
Hackett and van Asch experimented with different cords, materials and attachment systems, working through the engineering needed to make bungy jumping both exhilarating and reliably repeatable.
There was no established commercial model to follow. Instead, the pair were effectively developing a new adventure product from scratch.
But it would take one extraordinary stunt on the other side of the world to put the idea before a global audience.
The Eiffel Tower jump that changed everything
In 1987, Hackett secretly climbed the Eiffel Tower in Paris and bungy jumped from the landmark.
French police arrested him after the jump, but footage of the stunt quickly travelled around the world.
Television coverage and newspaper photographs transformed what had been an experimental adventure into an international talking point.
Suddenly the question wasn’t simply why someone would jump from a great height attached to an elastic cord.
It was whether ordinary people could do it too.
Queenstown becomes the birthplace of commercial bungy
The answer came a year later.
In 1988, the Kawarau Bridge near Queenstown became the world’s first commercial bungy jumping site, allowing members of the public to pay for an experience that only a few years earlier would have sounded almost unimaginable.
It proved enormously successful.
AJ Hackett Bungy New Zealand says more than 400,000 people now visit the Kawarau bungy site each year, with the historic bridge becoming part of Queenstown’s international adventure-tourism identity.
From Kawarau, the business expanded into other experiences and locations, including Taupō Bungy, Nevis, the Auckland SkyJump, Nevis Catapult and several swing and Sky Tower attractions.
More than just a big jump
The story is also an example of how New Zealand innovation can create entirely new tourism experiences.
An unconventional idea, experimentation and engineering eventually helped establish an adventure-tourism product exported around the world.
It also contributed to Queenstown’s development as the Adventure Capital of the World, demonstrating how an experience can become part of the identity and international marketing of an entire destination.
Nearly four decades after the Eiffel Tower leap, visitors continue standing on platforms above rivers and valleys confronting the same moment of uncertainty before taking the plunge.
But every time someone steps from the Kawarau Bridge, they are also participating in a piece of New Zealand tourism history.
What began as an audacious Kiwi backyard experiment became a global adventure phenomenon — and helped put Aotearoa on the map for people looking to do something extraordinary.
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