Activity in Market

Tourism New Zealand Activity

Campaign

A Thai language version of www.newzealand.com/travel will launch in early 2009 as a result of a partnership with MSN. Over 30 pages of information will be translated into Thai and made available through msn.com, with links back to www.newzealand.com. The campaign is expected to boost visitor numbers from Thailand in the short term and have some influence on the incentive market.

A partnership advertising campaign with Thai Airlines will start in early January 2009 to promote Business class and Economy class to passengers travelling in couples during February-March 09.

Media

Tourism New Zealand's International Media Programme has seen New Zealand achieve excellent media coverage in Thailand in the last few months.

Weekly Thai travel documentary, The Spirit of Adventure, broadcast four 30-minute episodes about New Zealand to an audience of 1 million on Channel 5 in November. The programme went out to a further 177 countries via satellite television. This project was a partnership between Tourism New Zealand, Thai wholesaler Global Link International and airline Royal Brunei. The November program featured Christchurch and Mount Cook and further episodes are due to go to air in December 2008 and January 2009.

Travel Around the World magazine, one of the top three travel magazines in Thailand, featured 30-pages of stories about the South Island, with a New Zealand image taking the front cover (circulation 80,000 copies).

Expression Magazine, a lifestyle magazine for American Express card holders with a circulation of 130,000 copies bi-monthly, attended the Montana World of Wearable Arts Awards Show in October and published a feature about the event in their December edition. More tourism stories will also be featured in the January 2009 edition. Image also featured ten pages about Wellington, with a wellbeing focus, following their visit to New Zealand in October.

Next Step Television, a satellite television channel, aired four 30-minute New Zealand episodes of Living Planet featuring the South Island (audience 2.5 million households).

Tourism New Zealand also held a press conference in November in honour of the Thai designer who won Runner-Up in the World of Wearable Arts Awards Show Avant Garde Section for his garment ‘Embryo of Cycle’.

Thailand’s first New Zealand campervan holiday guidebook will be launched in January 2009, following a visit to New Zealand by writer Ukit Tangsubkul in May. A press conference will be held in conjunction with a local credit card travel partner, KTC, to promote the guidebook and campervan holidays in New Zealand.

Events

Tourism New Zealand will participate jointly with Destination Rotorua in the sixth Thai International Travel Show in February/March 2009. This is the largest outbound travel show in Thailand, drawing over 350,000 people in 2008.

Trade

Tourism New Zealand staff from Wellington visited key travel agents, airlines and media in Thailand during November. A number of trade partners attended a cocktail function hosted by Tourism New Zealand at the New Zealand Ambassador’s residence.

Tourism New Zealand held a product development workshop for 16 travel agents in Pattaya in November. Seventeen agents attended and learnt about developing New Zealand self-drive itineraries.

Six Thai buyers attended Kiwi Link Asia 2008. A further nine Thai travel agents entered the Tourism New Zealand Asia Awards. Pineapple Travel was named the winner for the Best Online Marketing Award for the second consecutive time.

Airline and Competitor Activity

Thai Airways now flys four 777-300 non-stop services per week between Bangkok and Auckland. The frequency was daily services in 2005/06, but with the impact of the oil price crisis and aircraft shortages this dropped back to four in October 2008.

The epic film Australia will be launched in Thailand in late December 2008. Tourism Australia has planned an online campaign in partnership with MSN Thailand and Thai Airways to promote the ‘walkabout’ movie concept, stimulating consumers to take a walkabout in Australia on their holidays.

Meanwhile, Tourism Australia, in coordination with the Thai Travel Agents Association, organised a South East Asia Trade Mission for 60 Australian tourism operators. Another event was organised for Australian trade specialists to meet with 20 suppliers.

The Hong Kong Tourism Board offered two value-added programmes to stimulate overseas MICE activities, offering participants welcome souvenirs, complimentary copies of a visitor information booklet and VIP offers at shops and restaurants.

Korea Tourism Organization together with Seoul Metropolitan Government launched a special promotion ‘Transit Tour at Incheon International Airport’ for transit passengers. Running until 31 December 2008, the packages range from a free one-hour Yonggungsa Temple Tour to a five-hour Seoul City Tour with a 50 per cent discount.