Tourism New Zealand Gets $2.5 Million Boost

Tourism New Zealand is to receive an additional $2.5 million from the government to help boost its ‘What’s On’ marketing campaign in Australia.

Tourism New Zealand Chief Executive George Hickton said that despite a drop off of numbers in some long-haul markets, the Australian market still holds potential.

"This additional funding will help profile New Zealand as a holiday destination through the quieter winter months and then in to summer.

"We now have an opportunity to attract Australian visitors to more of our regions as well as appealing to the ‘visiting friends and relatives’ market that we have not specifically focused on before."

The ‘What’s On’ campaign was originally devised to attract more Australian visitors to New Zealand in the ‘shoulder seasons’ - that is autumn and spring. Last year for the first time the campaign was used to promote travel to New Zealand in summer, and earlier this year was used to attract early-bird ski bookings to New Zealand.

"The $2.5 million will allow us to run the campaign regularly throughout the year," Mr Hickton added. "But it will not just be used for advertising - we will be working on more opportunities to get Australian media telling stories about New Zealand. We will also be doing further work with the travel trade in Australia to collectively promote New Zealand as the place for Australians to take a holiday."

The $2.5 million investment will be allocated across three areas:

- Extending the current 100% Pure New Zealand and ‘What’s On’ activity in Australia to increase autumn and winter arrivals

- Increased public relations activity

- Working with industry partners to convert awareness of New Zealand into actual travel.

Australia is New Zealand’s largest visitor market supplying almost 978,000 arrivals in the year to January 2009. Over summer, visitor arrivals from Australia rose while those from many other markets declined.

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