NEW ZEALAND [TRAVEL + TOURISM]

[SYDNEY]

Originally Posted by aljuarez

I loooooved the Kiwi Sceptic videos! I've just watched them all. I must confess I used to have similar qualms before seeing all the wonderful photos in this forum about this gorgeous country. Admittedly about Australia too!... You know... hop on a plane for a over a dozen hours to get to yet another English-speaking, white-majority, modern place with little in the way of history or culture... Basically a warmer version of Canada or a slightly exotic version of the U.S. Southern coasts, only way farther away, and that much more expensive to get to.

NZ is still far away, but it's still firmly on the list now!

Sweet as I had the same reservations before moving to NZ ... I had no idea what to expect but I was pleasantly surprised. I am sure that you won't regret visiting

[SYDNEY]

Air NZ doubles charter flights from Japan

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Air New Zealand A320 by Suzuki san, on Flickr

Air New Zealand will double the number of charter flights between Japan and New Zealand this summer as it expects a fresh increase in visitor numbers. Fourteen flights will operate from seven Japanese cities. Six will fly into Christchurch from Nagoya and the rest into Auckland from Kagoshima, Hiroshima, Takamatsu and Shizuoka. The airline expects its charter programme, which operates on top of its regular services in Tokyo and Osaka, will bring in an extra 3200 tourists. "Christchurch is a hugely appealing destination for Japanese visitors and we anticipate these charter services will be a welcome boost to South Island tourism over summer," Air New Zealand's Japan general manager Ed Overy says.

The airline is also increasing its capacity from Tokyo by 20%. Japan is New Zealand's fifth largest source of visitors but the market has struggled to recover from the 2011 Christchurch earthquakes. Tourism New Zealand chief executive Kevin Bowler says the extra capacity over summer shows the market is recovering. "The quality of the Japanese market has long been important to the New Zealand tourism industry, and this charter programme provides a great opportunity to deliver more high value customers from Japan."

[SYDNEY]

China Airlines boosts Taipei services

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China Airlines Boeing 747-400 B-18207 by jbp274, on Flickr

Taiwan's China Airlines is boosting services from New Zealand to Taipei via Sydney. The airline will fly the route four times a week in addition to its three times a week service to Taipei via Brisbane. The new Sydney service starts on October 28 and will use an A330-300 aircraft with a total of 307 seats. Auckland Airport general manager aeronautical commercial, Glenn Wedlock, said the announcement marked a significant step towards stronger trade and tourism links between Taiwan and New Zealand and will deliver opportunities for growth from a number of markets this year. "We have been working on a number of development programmes in Taiwan and wider Asia as part of our Ambition 2020 initiative. The new services with China Airlines will help deliver on some key targets and drive in excess of $50 million in tourism and trade benefit for New Zealand."

China Airlines, founded in 1959, flies to 28 countries waround the world. Today's announcement follows Hawaiian Airlines' decision to fly from Auckland to Honolulu from next March and Indonesia's Garuda commitment to restart flights when market conditions allow. Air New Zealand said it will boost capacity on direct services between Auckland and Queenstown by 32 per cent this summer, including the addition of a fifth daily flight, giving travellers a choice of direct services approximately every two hours. The increased capacity will take the total number of seats available on direct services over summer to 5200 each way per week. The airline said additional flights are expected to be available for booking from later next week, with four services per day in November (up from three) and five per day from December to the end of March. As well as the extra flights this summer, additional capacity is also coming through increased use of larger A320 aircraft on some existing services replacing Boeing 737 aircraft.

[SYDNEY]

Surge in Chinese tourists to NZ

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... a resting breeze.... Twizel, New Zealand .... [Explored #22] by Rosie Ruffles, on Flickr

China has surged ahead of the United States and is on the verge of becoming New Zealand's second-biggest tourist market, according to the latest International Visitor Survey. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment's survey showed tourism spending was $5.6 billion for the year ending June 2012. This was flat on the previous year's total spend of $5.5 billion, despite visitor numbers having risen 5 per cent to 2.6 million. One standout in the survey was China, said the Ministry's tourism research and evaluation manager Peter Ellis. "If it weren't for the Rugby World Cup in this period we would have seen a decrease in total visitor spend of well over $200 million. "However, expenditure from Chinese visitors increased by 27 per cent to $522 million. "China is now our third-largest tourist market and just shy of the $568 million spent by visitors from the UK." China had already overtaken Germany and the United States and will soon become our second-largest visitor market, behind Australia, Ellis said. The number of Australian visitors to New Zealand increased 6 per cent to 1.17 million but spending stayed flat at $1.6 billion. Each tourist spent an average of 19.4 days in the country, down from 20.1 days in the year ended June 2011. The average expenditure was $2300. The International Visitor Survey is based on interviews with 5200 tourists per year departing from New Zealand airports.

[SYDNEY]

Count down to 100% Middle-earth

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PR0_1959 by excitedrainbow, on Flickr

With just three months to go until the world premiere of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey in Wellington, Tourism New Zealand has been working to ensure New Zealand benefits from the increase in international attention. A creative theme for all activity, Fantasy is Reality has been confirmed to ensure there is a strong connection between the films and New Zealand. Key international media and opinion leader targets have been identified. Advertising schedules are locked in. Broadcast footage, captured. "One of our most exciting milestones will be reached in late August when the new 100% Pure New Zealand campaign will get its first public airing, drawing together the themes '100% Pure' and '100% Middle Earth'" says Chief Executive Kevin Bowler. "Our new advertisement will be placed on TV, cinema and on-line, and new pages and imagery will go live on newzealand.com. "This will be the first screening of the latest evolution of the 100% Pure New Zealand campaign and we are pretty excited about it," he says. Tourism New Zealand is already well underway with its activity to convert the international attention New Zealand will draw from the movies, into travel. Kevin says, "International media attention surrounding the films has been growing over the past few months and we have already hosted a number of journalists who are writing specifically about New Zealand as the location for the films.

"We have Hobbit-specific pages on our corporate website, and images on our image library, providing a hub for all the news and information people may need. "Consumers visiting newzealand.com will already find a "Home of Middle-earth" section offering a range of experiences and products that are based around the filming of The Lord of the Rings. "We were also thrilled to be a part of the Weta booth at Comic Con in the middle of July, working alongside Air New Zealand, Hobbiton and Film New Zealand to promote New Zealand, to those who attended the exhibition." Comic Con is now regarded as the largest comic book and popular arts convention in the world with around 130,000 people attending. "As we work to leverage The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Hobbit: There and Back again, we will connect the landscapes of Middle-earth with the experiences of New Zealand. "Through our marketing activity we will show how easy it is to come here, see Middle-earth first-hand, and enjoy all the exciting and fun experiences New Zealand has to offer," he says.

[SYDNEY]

NZ guest nights rise in June, snapping 5 months of declines

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100% pure New Zealand by nonell, on Flickr

New Zealand guest nights rose in June, snapping five months of declines, led by an increase in domestic guest nights. Total guest nights rose 4 percent to 1.8 million in June from the same month a year earlier, according to Statistics New Zealand. The rise came from an 8.8 percent gain in domestic guest nights to 1.7 million, while international guest nights rose 3.9 percent to 1 million. "Domestic guest nights drove the overall increase, with international guest nights rising to a lesser extent," Blair Cardno, industry and labour statistics manager, said in a statement. "Most of the national rise occurred in the North Island, particularly in Auckland, with hotels showing a strong increase."

North Island guest nights rose 4.5 percent compared to June last year, led by a 12.9 percent increase in Auckland to 401,000 nights. Guest nights in the South Island rose by 3.4 percent to 611,000. The trend remains "relatively flat" in the South Island largely due to last year's Canterbury earthquake, the government department said. Guest nights rose across all accommodation types, led by an 8.2 percent increase in hotels to 976,000 compared to a month earlier. The number of nights spent at hotels has increased 5.3 percent since a recent low point in December. Nationally, the number of nights spent in motels rose 4.8 percent to 917,000, holiday parks increased 2.5 percent to 543,000 and backpacker accommodation advanced 0.5 percent to 343,000.

[SYDNEY]

Queenstown enjoys strong start to winter

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The Queenstown Lookout - (HDR New Zealand) by blame_the_monkey, on Flickr

Queenstown’s June visitor numbers showed a strong start to winter according to Statistics New Zealand figures released today (10 August). The Commercial Accommodation Monitor for June 2012 showed overall guest nights up 19.3 percent to 143,063 compared with June 2011. International guest nights were up 12.9 percent to 82,579, accounting for 57.7 percent of all guest nights in the Queenstown area, and domestic guest nights increased 29.3 percent to 60,484 for the same period. Hotels and motels/apartments were the key sectors to benefit, showing a strong increase of 22 percent in visitor nights. Destination Queenstown CEO Graham Budd said overall it was a very pleasing result. “We had a good strong start to winter and it’s great to see increases in both international and Kiwi visitors. These figures also align closely with increases in both domestic and international airport arrivals for June. “Remembering that in 2011 we also had travel disruptions from the Chilean volcanic ash and low early snowfall, it’s good to see a continued recovery in 2012.”

[SYDNEY]

This guy has great talent. He recently moved to Queenstown and compiled this video, it is amazing to watch

[Mr_kiwi_fruit]

Fantastic video, pure talent.

[SYDNEY]

Originally Posted by Mr_kiwi_fruit

Fantastic video, pure talent.

Definitely !

[SYDNEY]

I love the "drag race" in video 1.

Chinese market to find out about Queenstown ‘first hand’

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Queenstown by peter-moore, on Flickr

An online video series showcasing Queenstown and its seasons will target hundreds of thousands of Chinese-speaking users through China’s biggest social media platform. The six-part ‘Xie Hou Xin Xilan First Hand’ series, sponsored by Destination Queenstown, Tourism New Zealand and Auckland International Airport, is being produced by Queenstown locals Shuangji (Ji) Zhou, Trent Yeo and James Holman and hosted on newzealand.com. It is believed to be the first seasonal destination video about New Zealand produced directly for the Chinese online viewer.

The episodes, delivered in both Mandarin and English with subtitles, will harness the popularity and tools of the Sina Weibo network, described as a combination of Facebook and Twitter - neither of which are used in mainland China. Co-producer Trent Yeo said the video series was created to specifically encourage online conversations about Queenstown with Chinese-speaking people throughout the world. “Our aim is to encourage potential visitors to both New Zealand and Queenstown through compelling imagery and stories, showing them ‘First Hand’ that we’re an aspirational destination that’s appealing, accessible and welcoming. “Because of its popularity, Weibo is the best way to effectively reach this market. Its rich capabilities mean travellers can communicate easily from anywhere in the world and its range of features have enabled us to do some cool things like using it to pinpoint Chinese visitors in Queenstown to interview for our series.”

The ‘First Hand’ concept was developed by Ji Zhou, a Chinese ex-pat and local tourism consultant. “First Hand is based on a unique understanding of New Zealand as a destination but, more importantly, conveying the cultural drivers and nuances of the Chinese tourist, all of which have been captured beautifully by our cameraman James Holman,” he said. “We want to ‘open a window’ to what we offer here, remove travel barriers and get people excited.” Destination Queenstown CEO Graham Budd is very enthusiastic about the new ‘First Hand’ initiative. “China is an important emerging market for Queenstown, and First Hand is an innovative way of communicating and inspiring millions of potential Chinese speaking travellers,” he said. “To have a unique showcase of our destination which is produced by people who live here, love Queenstown and understand this audience is invaluable.”

Check out Episode One, which gives an introduction to Queenstown and showcases its annual Winter Festival, at http://www.newzealand.com/cn/campaign/first-hand/.

[Mr_kiwi_fruit]

The drag race is hilarious

[DaveF12]

a beautiful country indeed.

[SYDNEY]

Originally Posted by DaveF12

a beautiful country indeed.

Thank you

[SYDNEY]

Backpackers are tourism's backbone

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Tongariro Crossing - Tongariro National Park - New Zealand 066 by Julien | Quelques-notes.com, on Flickr

The New Zealand economy has a lot to thank young backpackers and travellers for. The 15-29 age group is not only growing, but outperforming the rest of our visitor market. A market prioritisation study by Tourism New Zealand two years ago identified youth as a key segment. It found that while young people made up a quarter of visitors to New Zealand, they accounted for a third of total international tourism expenditure. Of the total tourism spend of $5.6 billion in the year to June, $1.8b came from the younger set. Tourism NZ wants to keep it that way and will shortly launch the next step of a global campaign it kicked off a year ago. The prospects are tantalising. While younger visitors may not spend as much per day as other visitors, they stay much longer and so spend more per trip.

The latest visitor survey and international travel and migration data shows young tourists spend an average $2877 each trip compared with the average spend of all tourists of $2360. Younger travellers stayed in New Zealand for an average 25.3 days, much longer than other holidaymakers who stayed an average 16.1 days. The youth segment was important in a number of other ways, Tourism NZ spokesman Justin Watson, explained. “It's a sizeable market and it's also a really attractive market. “They tend to trip around the country a lot more, so they help spread tourism business around the whole country.” As a consequence these travellers are also more likely to return in later life, possibly for education, a holiday or family trip. “They also help to fill seasonal employment through the working holiday scheme.”

Two years ago the picture wasn't so rosy. The shine was coming off New Zealand as a tourist destination, said Watson. “Our youth numbers were in decline prior to the campaign launch and now the market will end 5 per cent up, which is about in line with our total arrivals.” Closer scrutiny reveals the country's key youth markets - Australia, Germany and Britain - have grown ahead of the total arrivals figures. Young travellers out of Australia for the year to June are up 9 per cent against that market's overall 5.8 per cent rise. The young German market is up 3 per cent compared with a drop of 3.4 per cent in German visitors overall. The youth market out of Britain is down 1 per cent but still ahead of total visitor arrivals from there which are down 2.5 per cent. Tourism NZ said its campaign, called Stories Beat Stuff, is working. In October it moves into its third and final phase. Launched a year ago, it worked off the premise that nothing beats an experience of a lifetime. It challenged entrants to give up a prized possession for a chance to win six “lifetime experiences” for small groups.

It received 350 entries and 4500 votes from the main target markets of Germany, Britain, the United States, Australia and Canada. Of the 2.62 million visitor arrivals to New Zealand in the year to June, 607,300 were young people. This important segment accounts for a third of the international tourism spend here. They stay longer than other visitors and spend more too. Leo Carneiro, from Brazil, is staying at Base Backpackers in downtown Auckland. He is learning English and chose New Zealand as it was accessible. “It's a beautiful country too.” He is here for two months and will also visit Christchurch. Cas Kleverlaan from Holland has been here six weeks and will likely stay another two months. He plans to go to Wellington and Queenstown. Briton Joe Whittaker will spend four months working here. “I wanted to come to a beautiful country [and] because of Lord of the Rings,” he said.

[SYDNEY]

NZ Tourism targets Indian honeymooners

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Lake Tikitapu (Blue Lake), Rotorua New Zealand by Spencer Miles, on Flickr

New Zealand Tourism has launched a major campaign in India encouraging honeymooners to 'Discover 100 per cent Pure Romance'. In a joint venture campaign with Singapore Airlines, Tourism New Zealand (TNZ) had rolled out print, radio and online advertisements across India targeting the honeymoon market. Honeymoon was a growing sector of travel outbound from India, said Mischa Mannix-Opie, TNZ South and South-East Asia regional manager. New Zealand was a key destination for Indian honeymooners as it offered a more temperate climate for the honeymoon season while Europe was getting cooler as it headed into winter, she said. "Ultimately the aim with our programme of activity is to deepen Indian consumers' understanding of how New Zealand can deliver the ultimate honeymoon or couples holiday. "By increasing their awareness and preference of New Zealand it is our intention to create a stronger result in our campaign activity." Indian honeymooners typically travelled in November following the Diwali Festival.

"Honeymoon visitors from India have continued to grow arrivals during November and December," said Mannix-Opie. Research showed that 56 per cent of Indian visitors aged between 25-34 years came to New Zealand for a honeymoon, she said. Indian holiday arrivals aged 25-34 years represented 30 per cent of the Indian holiday market, which accounted for 14,080 arrivals in the 12 months to July 2012. Indian visitor arrivals to New Zealand contributed about $74 million last year. The 100 per cent Pure Romance campaign did not include activity or accommodation packages but drove consumers to newzealand.com, which provideed information about honeymoon-specific experiences and connected them with operators and travel sellers. The campaign targeted specific locations in India, including New Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore. A media function was held in New Delhi and Mumbai last week aimed at deepening the Indian media's understanding of New Zealand honeymoon experiences.

Representatives from key Indian travel companies met with New Zealand tourism in the four-day event. According to the TNZ, India had been highlighted as a key market because "high disposable incomes and a willingness to spend on luxury brands and big-ticket items like holidays, as well as an increasingly global mindset, are driving outbound travel from this market". Figures for the year ended June 2012 showed a total of 29,648 visitors arrived in New Zealand from India, a 1.1 per cent increase on the previous year. This compared to 23,328 Indian visitors in 2008. The honeymoon campaign came on the heels of another launched by Tourism New Zealand last week called 'Experience 100 per cent Pure New Zealand luxury', targeting high-end travellers from Singapore.

[SYDNEY]

Pure adverts have a new Ring to them

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30 MAR 12 HOBBITON WAIKATO by Urban+Explorer, on Flickr

A scent of Middle-earth is being used to lure more foreign tourists to New Zealand, but you won't see any Hobbits in Tourism New Zealand's new $10 million advertising campaign. The refreshed version of the 12-year-old “100 per cent Pure” campaign is done in the movie style of Sir Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. It will start screening overseas in the lead-up to the first Hobbit movie, due to open at a premiere in Wellington at the end of November. The ad is expected to run for a couple of years and will appear on thousands of screens in Australia, Japan, China, Britain and Germany, not including more than 1000 screens in the United States. Instead of showing grand but empty landscapes of past "100 per cent Pure" ads, the advert scenes all feature people out doing something - tramping the hills, tasting wine, enjoying the coastline.

The kicker at the end of the advert is a round Hobbit-hole door closing at the Hobbiton set - but that is as far as it goes as a direct visual reference to the movies. While just 1 per cent of tourists in past surveys said they came to New Zealand specifically because of the Lord of the Rings films, 6 per cent said it was a main reason. So the Hobbit-themed ads could help bring many more visitors next year, Tourism NZ said. The Hobbit films, if they achieve the same success of the Rings trilogy, could be seen by hundreds of millions of people. The Hobbit book has sold more than 100 million copies around the world. Tourism NZ plans to get the new adverts running at cinemas showing the Hobbit films in key markets around the world, such as Australia from this weekend, and later in the United States. Target markets for the adverts include China, a rapidly growing source of tourists for New Zealand.

However, Lord of the Rings was hardly a smash movie there. The Return of the King had box office sales of just US$10m in China, about the same as Switzerland, and a tiny fraction of the total foreign gross of more than US$742m, excluding the United States. But Tourism New Zealand chief executive Kevin Bowler is confident the Middle-earth style adverts will work in China and other markets, because it was a “global phenomenon” that would cut across cultures, including in China. “As Lord of the Rings was in Japan," he said. Tourism NZ expected a big audience for the Hobbit films in China, but stressed its adverts were about New Zealand, not the movie. “It is not an ad to promote Hobbits - there are no Hobbits in it. It is a continuation of our 100 per cent Pure campaign,” Mr Bowler said.

[SYDNEY]

100% Middle-earth 100% Pure New Zealand

[SYDNEY]

AUCKLAND TOURISM PROMO

[SYDNEY]

Auckland campaign seeks to draw Kiwi tourists

Auckland tourism chiefs are hoping to fill empty hotel beds with an $800,000 campaign to attract other New Zealanders to the city. The Auckland ratepayer-funded campaign, which began yesterday, targets potential visitors in Waikato, Northland, the Bay of Plenty, Wellington and Canterbury and promotes Auckland as a diverse, vibrant place. Research found some people still saw Auckland as an unwelcoming, hostile and snooty city. Hotel occupancy is running at 60 per cent and Ateed, the city council's tourism and events subsidiary, wants to increase that to about 80 per cent. Tourism Industry Association chief executive Martin Snedden said domestic tourism was worth about $13 billion - 60 per cent of all tourism revenue - and deserved more focus. "That is incredibly important to the sustainability of tourism; while we have a lot of businesses that deal with international tourism, a lot of them get their bread and butter from domestic tourism. They can't afford to do without it," he said.

"If you talk to Government, not surprisingly they're interested in new international money but I would have thought there would be room for them to be thinking about the domestic part of the market." Australia and Britain had large domestic marketing campaigns, Snedden said. Ateed's chief executive, Brett O'Riley, said the television advertising campaign outside Auckland would run over the next two months and online promotion would run longer. "With transtasman airfares as low as they are, we've deliberately pitched Auckland as an international destination so all the things you can enjoy in an international city can be enjoyed in Auckland - and you can drive here." The campaign was launched after focus group research and an online survey of 1000 people. Ateed hopes to increase the value of Auckland's domestic tourism sector from $1.36 billion in 2010 to $2 billion annually by 2021.