Newsletter : May 2017
Written by Steph Kendall
Welcome to the New Zealand Tourism Guide www.tourism.net.nz May 2017 issue. If you have news or comments, please email us news@tourism.net.nz.
In this May newsletter:
- 2017 Tourism Election Manifesto - Tourism for Tomorrow
- Linguistics Conference Lured Out of the UK
- $178m Package for Tourism Infrastructure
- Air New Zealand and Tourism New Zealand Sign New MoU
- 60 Years of Friendship with Malaysia
- New Zealand Tourism Benefits from the Trump Effect
- Tools for Business: Going Green
- Tourism Site of the Month: Kahu Kayaks
2017 Tourism Election Manifesto - Tourism for Tomorrow
TIA's 2017 Tourism Election Manifesto Tourism for Tomorrow highlights the industry's priorities for a sustainable future and what the industry wants from the incoming Government:
- Support the tourism sustainability goal through positive policy and regulatory settings, and funding
- Continue support for the post-earthquake recovery of both Kaikoura and Christchurch as key regions for the industry's economic sustainability
- Demonstrate a serious commitment to protecting the environment, recognising its importance to tourism
- Commit to enhancing our fresh water resources and make measurable progress on Predator Free New Zealand
- Work with the tourism industry to establish a sustainable funding model to address medium and longer term local and mixed use infrastructure priorities
- Make a commitment to removing barriers to infrastructure investment
- Provide for a sustainable funding model to ensure DOC remains a significant contributor and enabler of the visitor experience without compromising its core role of growing conservation
- Recognise that tourism concessionaires provide income to DOC as well as enhancing visitors' enjoyment of the public conservation estate. Reduce barriers to private sector investment in new attractions and activities on the public conservation estate, and promote opportunities for concessionaires. Concession costs and cost review systems need to be transparent and predictable
- Create policy and regulatory settings that are supportive of sustainable tourism growth and give tourism greater visibility as a leading and innovative sector
- Recognise the continually evolving nature of tourism and provide policy settings that create a level playing field for all industry participants
- Continue to support the Public Service CEOs' Tourism Group
- Examine the regulatory environment applied to businesses serving visitors and assess where the compliance burden can be reduced to support increased productivity. Any regulatory change should lead to improved business outcomes and better government services
- Ensure the Tourism portfolio continues to be held by a senior front bench Minister, to reflect the industry's importance to growing New Zealand's economy
- Recognise tourism's importance to the overall trade and export growth agenda
- Support and work with the industry as it keeps updating its Growth Framework in order to address the most pressing industry issues
- Encourage and incentivise tourism through regional development plans, and support destination management and development
- Invest more of the tourism dividend received by the Government into infrastructure to support the industry's future growth
- Maintain support for Tourism New Zealand's marketing efforts and use TNZ to encourage regional dispersal and seasonality, and support new product development
- Give more resourcing to tourism policy functions within government
- Align government tourism data and insight with the industry's Tourism 2025 aspirations, insight strategy and plans
- Recognise tourism within government research and innovation initiatives such as the Science and Innovation programme
- Continue enabling international air services, especially those which encourage growth from high quality segments and emerging markets
- Continue liberalising visitor visa processes to support growth from key visitor markets. Advance consideration of initiatives to establish common border facilitation with Australia
- Support Customs, the Ministry for Primary Industries and Immigration NZ to work in genuine partnership with the tourism industry on continuous improvement to the border experience
- Continue support for visitor safety initiatives, including the visiting driver project, and adventure and outdoor tourism safety
- Commit to enabling a road network that delivers a safe and enjoyable driving experience and promotes regional dispersal
- Continue support for the industry's freedom camping actions.
- Commit to working in partnership with us to attract New Zealanders to work in tourism
- Ensure immigration settings allow tourism employers to secure quality staff when no suitable New Zealanders are available.
View the full manifesto text.
Linguistics Conference Lured Out of the UK
Wellington will host the 2019 iMean (Interaction and Meaning) conference held for the first time out of the United Kingdom. The event will bring around 250 delegates to the capital and is expected to deliver over $700k to the economy plus individual delegate spend.
The conference has been arranged to occur just before Easter 2019 to encourage attendees to bring their families with them and couple the business visit with a family holiday. Statistics show that an international conference attendee has a high probability at returning to the destination country in a personal capacity once they have visited for the first time. Wellington currently holds 21% market share of all business events held in New Zealand.
Key Facts
- Tourism New Zealand had a target to assist 60 conference bids a year. In the in 2015/16 financial year 71 international bids were achieved with 72% success rate.
- New Zealand is being promoted as a compelling business events destination in Australia, China, South East Asia, USA and the Global Association market.
- Tourism New Zealand offers strategic marketing and bid assistance to internationally-affiliated organisations seeking to host a conference of more than 200 international delegates in New Zealand.
$178m Package for Tourism Infrastructure
Tourism Minister Paula Bennett recently announced a new $102m Tourism Infrastructure Fund which has been launched alongside $76m in new funding for the DOC Estate.
The Tourism Infrastructure Fund will provide $100m over the next four years in partnership with local councils and other community organisations for projects like new carparks, toilets, freedom camping facilities, visitor information centres and feasibility studies for infrastructure projects. DOC funding is for upgrades and development of tourist facilities on conservation land and for expansion of the Great Walks network.
This fund is made up of $60.5m in new money from Budget 2017 and $41.5m in funds which have been reprioritised from the Tourism Growth Partnership and the Regional Mid-sized Tourism Facilities Grant Fund. Of that, $2m over four years has been provided to manage the fund.
Air New Zealand and Tourism New Zealand Sign New MoU
Air New Zealand and Tourism New Zealand today committed to a marketing partnership worth up to $20 million this year, to promote New Zealand in key offshore markets.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) outlined intent to invest up to $10 million each over 12 months for joint activity in Australia, China, North and South America, Japan, Singapore, the United Kingdom and Europe.
This is the fifth consecutive year Air New Zealand and Tourism New Zealand have coordinated their international market development and promotion. Collaboration in the past year includes increased marketing in the United States, Argentina and Brazil, with the success of the airline's direct services from Houston and Buenos Aires.
60 Years of Friendship with Malaysia
60 years of diplomatic relations between New Zealand and Malaysia is being marked this year. Tourism has played an integral role in forging the relationship between the two countries and is continuing to grow. The theme for this year's anniversary celebration is 'New Zealand – Malaysia: Discovering the New'.
A record breaking 53,008 Malaysians visited New Zealand in the year ending January 2017, up 53.7 per cent from the previous year. The introduction of more flights between Malaysia and New Zealand in recent years has helped improve tourism between the two destinations.
New Zealand Tourism Benefits from the Trump Effect
New Zealand is increasingly being seen as an "escape" for United States travellers in the wake of the election of Donald Trump, says Bjoern Spreitzer, General Manager of Americas and Europe for Tourism New Zealand. With the number of visitors from the US growing rapidly, up 23 per cent in the year to March to 312,000, Spreitzer said recent changes had been dramatic in the United States and this would fuel this market even more. He added that Americans had a "love affair" with New Zealand and many used all of their limited annual leave to visit. Speaking at a Trenz tourism marketing event, he said, "New Zealand is seen as a really good place to escape - they always liked landscapes but there's a friendliness element now that has really got dialled up because of the changes in the US."
Tools for Business: Going Green
Tourism New Zealand (TNZ)'s survey of visitor experience in November 2015 revealed that, "Natural landscapes and scenery is the top factor for influencing visitors to choose New Zealand…" In the same survey, visitors expressed high expectations of tourism operators in New Zealand expecting operators to be taking actions to reduce their impact on the environment.
TNZ publish the following guidelines for 'Going Green'.
- The Tourism Industry Aotearoa (TIA) is involved with projects aimed at improving the sustainability of tourism businesses (see the manifesto above)
- Visitors look for an environmental accreditation - the sustainability component of Qualmark, known as Qualmark Green, will help you assess your current
- Local sustainable tourism advisors can help. These advisors are funded by the regional tourism organisations and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment's Tourism Strategy Group (see www.tourism.govt.nz) to help tourism businesses improve their environmental performance.
- Carbon offsetting is an option for businesses that are unable to reduce all of their emissions themselves. It involves paying someone else to offset emissions by helping fund emission-reducing projects. Programmes like carboNZero help you to measure emissions created by your business and decide how to reduce and/or offset them.
- Paying for carbon-neutral certification is also an option. The advantage is being able to market your business as carbon neutral and gain a competitive edge with environmentally-conscious clients.
- Both energy and money can be saved by reducing consumption and improving efficiency. For more information on fuel-saving tips, see www.energywise.govt.nz.
Top Tourism Site of the Month
This month's Top Tourism Site Award goes to Kahu Kayaks.
Why does this website rock? The text and photos on this website are funny, engaging and so different that you may stay awhile on each page even if you're not remotely interested in booking a kayaking tour or trip around the Abel Tasman. Probably one of the few pages about staff that's been read in its entirety – click on 'Our Crew' to see what this company is doing differently. The website screams 'fun, fun, fun', which is what most travellers want to experience on their holiday. Top marks Kahu Kayaks.
Nominate a Site
If you think a New Zealand travel or tourism website deserves a 'Top Tourism Site Award', let us know about it. (View further information about the award criteria).
About the Top Tourism Site Award
The New Zealand Tourism Guide confers a Top Tourism Site Award to websites that:
- Enhance New Zealand as a travel destination
- Publish useful and informative content
- Are laid out in a professional and aesthetically-pleasing manner
- Are designed effectively for the World Wide Web
- May demonstrate easy functionality, interactivity, originality, outstanding graphic quality and marketing reach.
We welcome any feedback — send your comments to: news@tourism.net.nz
Kind regards,
The Team
Ph 0800 14 65 49
www.tourism.net.nz
New Zealand Tourism Guide
Head Office: Ground Floor, 518 Colombo Street, Christchurch