Trade Marketing

Last Updated on: 11 January 2012

Indian travel sellers meet with New Zealand operators at Tourism New Zealand's flagship trade training event, Kiwi Link, in Mumbai in 2009. Tourism New Zealand stand at Thailand's Sept 09 Discovery World Travel Fair

Travel sellers put destinations and products on the shelf and into the hands of consumers. Whether that 'shelf' is the website of an online travel seller or a brochure stand at the local travel agents, travel sellers make it possible for consumers to book and buy holidays. Tourism New Zealand's trade marketing activity aims to make this 'channel' work in New Zealand's favour.

Who are the trade?

The international travel trade is made up of a range of different individuals and organisations that sell travel. These can include High Street travel retailers or smaller independent travel agents, travel wholesalers who on-sell to retailers, inbound tour operators who package products for travel sellers, cruise lines, online travel sellers and airlines that operate their own travel branches (such as Singapore Airlines Holidays).

Passion and purpose

We want international travel sellers to love New Zealand as much as we do and to be capable of selling New Zealand experiences well.

Tourism New Zealand works with travel sellers from across all of our offshore markets to ensure they have a good understanding of New Zealand, that they offer the products our target market wants to buy and that they are passionate about what we offer as a destination.

We do this in a number of ways:

  • By involving travel seller partners in our consumer marketing campaigns and assisting them with promoting New Zealand
  • By building travel sellers' and product planners' knowledge of New Zealand regions and products
  • By training frontline sellers to help them increase their New Zealand sales

Along with the work that Tourism New Zealand's trade team undertakes with individual companies, we also run a number of training and networking events each year in which New Zealand regions and operators can participate. These include workshops on New Zealand's regions and tourism offering as well as events designed to help New Zealand operators and offshore travel trade make connections and generate business opportunities. Trade missions are designed to showcase specific types of products to travel sellers and inspire them to sell New Zealand.

Tourism New Zealand also runs online 'webinar' training in several key markets, face-to-face training seminars and hosts a number of travel seller familiarisation visits each year. For those who we aren't able to host, we offer the Explore New Zealand discount programme, which encourages travel sellers and visiting media to do more on self-funded famils.

Our travel trade website - www.traveltrade.newzealand.com - is a valuable resource for travel sellers with a huge range of information about New Zealand, an interactive database of tourism products, maps and transport information, news, commentary and online training modules.  New Zealand operators can list for free on this website, exposing their products to the thousands of travel sellers who use the site every month.

Two for the price of one

In markets including the UK, US, Australia, China and Germany, Tourism New Zealand works with the travel trade to help them support our consumer-facing marketing activity. The travel trade can boost visibility of our campaign work through their own marketing and support it by offering the kinds of products we are promising consumers.

In other markets, Tourism New Zealand's offshore teams work with key travel trade partners to develop joint promotions and campaigns that support 100% Pure New Zealand, helping increase travel sellers' sales and boost visitor numbers to New Zealand.

Want to know more?

If you are interested in getting involved in our trade events or familiarisation programme, check out the Marketing Toolbox section of this website.

There are a number of checks operators need to make to ensure they are ready to take their businesses offshore, but once you're ready to go, there are a several ways you can get involved in our work with offshore travel sellers.

To talk to us about our work in specific markets, contact our offshore offices.

Are you listed on www.traveltrade.newzealand.com?

Thousands of international travel agents and product planners visit our travel trade website every month in search of new, export-ready tourism products. It's free to list your business online and it's as easy as clicking the 'Trade Information' link when you register your business at http://www.register.newzealand.com.

Travel Trade Website