Australia insight column by Tim Burgess, General Manager
Australia
As Tourism New Zealand's largest and closest market, Australia
plays a crucial role. Accordingly, it is a regular topic of our
communications and was most recently included as a webinar session earlier this month.
Maintaining growth in Australian holiday arrivals is a core
focus of our marketing activity. Today's IVA figures have shown
that holiday arrivals grew by 3.7 per cent for the year
ending March 2012, confirming that destination New Zealand
continues to be an attractive holiday destination to the Australian
market.
At the heart our activity is a drive to increase visits and
maximise length of stay. Our research us
that 57 per cent of Australians that come here on holiday have
visited New Zealand before, so we target first time visitors as we
know there is a strong opportunity to get them back again.
We continue to refine our segmentation of the Australian market
to ensure we are targeting the right people with the right message.
Our current four segments - Young Adventurers, Independent
Professionals, Silver Surfers and Families - span age groups and
interests. We break this down to an even stronger message by
tailoring campaigns to each sectors' special interests such as ski
and walking.
Partner activity remains key to increasing the reach and
effectiveness of these campaigns.
Our recent campaign 'Go with someone who knows' saw us partner
with coach operators to generate awareness of New Zealand as a
coach tour destination. We are planning to evolve the campaign to
run again later in the year.
Another joint venture campaign, The South Island road trip, was the first to
use a new partnership structure focusing on larger, more
synchronised and consumer driven activity with multiple partners.
Rolled out in association with South Island RTOs, travel sellers
and Australian based travel trade, the campaign surpassed all
online targets and generated over 43,000 referrals to travel
sellers.
The success of this new structure confirmed that there are more
opportunities for collaboration of this kind and a similar campaign
for the North Island is now being developed for later this
year.
Our latest partnership activity is our winter Ski campaign, More in Everyday. Launched in February
this is being implemented with partners such as Ski Tourism
Marketing Network (TMN) and Flight Centre, to position New Zealand
as the only place to ski this winter.
TNZ has just partnered with a range of New Zealand operators to
create a strong New Zealand presence at the recent consumer shows
across Australia. This was the first time in a number of years we
had attended consumer events to engage with Australian travellers
face-to-face alongside New Zealand suppliers and the feedback we
have received so far has been very positive.
Engaging with travel trade completes the loop in our marketing
activity. In Australia we are focused on supporting frontline
travel sellers with training and famils - to ensure they have the
tools to convert the interest we generate in our activity into
bookings.
Which brings me to TRENZ - New Zealand's biggest trade event.
This year I will present on the Australian market alongside Owen
Eagles of ANZCRO, whose years of experience selling New Zealand
holidays to Australians will be sure to offer some interesting
points of discussion for all.
I looking forward to meeting you and discussing our plans for
the year ahead, as well as sharing examples of the successful
campaign and PR work we have completed.