TY - JOUR AB - Purpose The purpose of this paper is to gain an understanding of why the phenomena of knitting is important in society and an explanation of the underlying currents for tourism.Design/methodology/approach The paper presents a futurist's observations and reflections.Findings Why is knitting making a comeback? Consumers are shutting the door on the world and cocooning thus returning to the world of crafts and hobbies as a way to seek enjoyment. An interest in authenticity and the past as an escape from the present. Single people looking for something to do in an urban world, thus some consumers have turned to knitting. Today, the authors are seeing niche holiday providers offering knitting cruises, knitting escapes and knitting adventures. For New Zealand the home Merrino wool knitting tourism has the potential to be bigger than bungy jumping (some would say).Originality/value The trends paper provides an insight of the key trends from a societal perspective of what knitting means and its manifestation as a tourism experience. The value to operators is understanding those trends in context of why the phenomena is occurring. VL - 1 IS - 2 SN - 2055-5911 DO - 10.1108/JTF-12-2014-0004 UR - https://doi.org/10.1108/JTF-12-2014-0004 AU - Yeoman Ian AU - McMahon‐Beattie Una PY - 2015 Y1 - 2015/01/01 TI - New Zealand's future: the potential for knitting tourism T2 - Journal of Tourism Futures PB - Emerald Group Publishing Limited SP - 152 EP - 155 Y2 - 2024/09/19 ER -