Newsletter : November 2013
Written by Steph Kendall
Welcome to the New Zealand Tourism Guide www.tourism.net.nz November 2013 issue. If you have news or comments, please email us news@tourism.net.nz.
In this November newsletter:
- Chinese Dreamliner Boost for New Zealand Tourism
- TNZ's Digital Marketing Pays Off with Good Summer Forecast
- German Blog Marketing for New Zealand
- Offer: Free Feature in Our Traveller Newsletter
- How to Get Started with Email Marketing
- 10 Tips to Improve Business
- Tourism Site of the Month: Banks House
Chinese Dreamliner Boost for New Zealand Tourism
China Southern Airlines flew the first scheduled Boeing 787 Dreamliner flight into New Zealand on the 28th October, arriving in Auckland from the Chinese city of Guangzhou. This is considered to be a significant boost for tourism.
The 787 replaces the Airbus A330 previously used on the daily Guangzhou-Auckland route - a service that will be ramped up to 10 flights a week during the high season (December to March). As a result, the airline's seating capacity into Auckland will increase by 5 per cent a year.
The Guangzhou-based airline's Dreamliner has 228 seats and is the first Dreamliner to have a first-class cabin. Auckland Airport said China was a major part of the airport's growth strategy, "We want our Chinese visitors to have the best possible experience in New Zealand so last week we invested in new, multiple-language flight information display boards. The first foreign language we chose to display on these boards was Chinese - all Chinese flight information is now in Chinese."
- China is now New Zealand's second largest tourism market and forecasts show that arrivals from China are expected to more than double over the next 5 years to 450,000
- In the last 12 months to September 2013, there were over 236,000 Chinese visitors to New Zealand, contributing $645 million to our economy
TNZ's Digital Marketing Pays Off with Good Summer Forecast
Tourism New Zealand says its big digital push is paying off with a surge in the number of referrals to tourism businesses during the past year. The organisation, which has responsibility for marketing New Zealand as a destination overseas, says there were about two million referrals to tourism businesses through its digital channels, 50 per cent up on the year before.
Key Stats
- The number of visits to newzealand.com had increased 29 per cent to 14.1 million
- Visitors were still using the site primarily for research and investigation
- Research found that 81 per cent were more likely to travel to New Zealand as a result of visiting the website
Free Listings on the newzealand.com Website
There is no charge for local tourism businesses to list on the site. Find out more at www.register.newzealand.com/en/home/
In July, Tourism NZ launched a mobile travel app - Essential New Zealand - which has just won a design award and makes it easier for travellers to access information on the go while in New Zealand, without the need for a Wi-Fi connection.
Tourism NZ has a total budget of $113 million a year with about $60 million spent on advertising. Chief Executive, Kevin Bowler said, "Even in the most challenging markets such as the United Kingdom we're seeing quite positive signs. It may not be at historical levels but we're in for a very good summer."
German Blog Marketing for New Zealand
Five German bloggers completed a whirlwind tour of some of New Zealand's top tourist attractions, experiencing plenty of great kiwi characters, food, entertainment and accommodation along the way. The bloggers were winners of a Tourism New Zealand's (TNZ) competition which offered a unique ten day adventure trip in New Zealand for German bloggers.
Each of the five itineraries was tailored to match the theme of the winning bloggers' posts and ensured each person travelled the country from top to bottom, doing different things in different regions. The campaign aims to inspire German 'Active Considers' to visit New Zealand after reading first-hand experiential content. Germany is our second-largest visitor market in Europe.
The adventurers also posted their sights and experiences in real time using Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Highlights included student bands in Dunedin, Fox Glacier via helicopter, breweries in Nelson, the World of Wearable Art show in Wellington and coffee at Cathedral Cove.
Offer: Free Feature in Our Traveller Newsletter
If you'd like to be featured in our free Traveller Newsletter (sent to thousands of subscribers) every month, please contact the Editor. We are particularly interested in featuring businesses who offer visitors from overseas unique or particularly 'Kiwi' experiences. Please remember to include details of your business and website (only operators with websites can be featured).
How to Get Started with Email Marketing
Written by Steph Kendall
Social media such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram are definitely favourites in the online marketing world at the moment, but the good 'old-fashioned' email should not get overlooked. Email marketing – sending out targeted emails to subscribed recipients - is a cost-effective and efficient way of keeping in touch with your market.
Putting Your Mailing List Together
To avoid any penalties associated with spam marketing, you need to send your email marketing to subscribed recipients. No-one likes spam – digital or print – and people do not react favourably to something they don't like. Instead focus on ways to establish your email marketing list:
- Ask for Subscribers - Ask for email addresses on your web pages (website and Facebook), in your emails, at the end of enquiry or booking forms, at the end of a telephone call and at the coal-face of your business.
- Entice Subscribers - Publish information that's going to interest your intended audience – competitions and offers (probably the most effective ways of getting subscribers), tips about travel, your local region, activities and news. If readers find your content useful, there's a good chance they will sign up for future mailings from you.
- Get to Know Your Subscribers - Try to find out more about your (potential) customers – travel interests and preferences, for example – so you can send tailored marketing messages.
Tips for Running Effective Email Campaigns
- Keep your emails short and sweet – and state clearly and concisely what's in it for your recipient. People are inundated with messages, so tell them why your email benefits them.
- Write an effective 'subject line' and message that avoid 'spam triggers': words like 'Free' or 'Money Back Guarantee', 'Re: or Fwd:', capital letters, repeated symbols ($$$$) exclamation marks, too many colours in your email text and incorrectly marked up HTML.
- Keep in touch regularly (once a month) - do not send too many emails to your list.
- Always send mail to subscribed recipients.
- Never pass on your recipients' email addresses – never.
- Check your email before you send it – sending out an email full of errors generates negative rather than positive publicity.
- Send targeted emails, wherever possible, to relevant segments of your mailing list.
- Use reliable and professional email marketing software if possible (*SmartMail, MailChimp, Mad Mimi, Cakemail, etc)
- Never send emails to your email marketing list and allow recipients to 'see' each other's addresses.
- Include an unsubscribe link in every marketing communication.
- Include your physical address and phone number, as well as a contact email address in all email marketing.
*Please note: These mail services are not endorsed by NZTG.
10 Tips to Improve Business
Written by Steph Kendall
- Make sure you have listed your business on Google Places. This helps your business listing get found more easily found on Google.com, Google Hotel Finder and Google Maps. Creating a listing takes just a few minutes and is free.
- Approach local businesses and present a 'block booking' opportunity (for a conference, class or weekend retreat) which may help fill rooms and empty conference rooms, especially in your low season.
- Never share business problems with your guests – they are on holiday and don't want to deal with any troubles, especially not yours.
- Get started with email marketing (see this month's article and more tips in our Business Centre).
- Think outside the box and market your accommodation with popular and fun 'learning opportunities' – e.g. 'Stay with us and find out how to quit smoking for good', 'Stay with us and learn about making award-winning wine', 'Stay with us and take home a chocolate brownie recipe to die for.' Tap your own and locals' knowledge and interests.
- Remember to offer your customers an 'upsell' opportunity – i.e. "Do you want fries with that?" (single to a double room, bungy jumping in two more locations, etc)
- Review your listings on other websites – look at your stats (which sites are sending people to your website?), how have they presented your business (is it professional?) and are these websites ranking for relevant keyword searches?
- Take to the road with plenty of brochures and make sure your business brochure is available and well-displayed in popular stop-offs for tourists and travellers in your area.
- Sign up to Google Analytics – it's a free tool and helps you find out about your customers' behaviour on your website, across ads, videos, websites, social media, tablets and phones. Analytics can help you to convert lookers into bookers and attract new customers.
- For inspiring, informative comment and articles about the wider tourism industry, check out Google's Think Tank at www.google.com/think/industries/travel-tourism.html.
More Business Tips
You'll find more business tips in our newsletter archive, alongside:
Top Tourism Site of the Month
This month's Top Tourism Site Award goes to Banks House.
Banks House is a luxury bed and breakfast accommodation in Akaroa on the Banks Peninsula (about a 90 minute drive from Christchurch in the South Island). Its website is elegantly designed – very much in keeping with the character of the building itself – and uses beautiful quality photography, an easy to read font (that is both fashionable and stylish) and lots of 'white space' giving the text and pictures room to breathe. All elements that make the website very attractive and enticing to a new online visitor.
A few elements that could be added to the website include:
- Search engine optimisation techniques (it is rare to find a website without any Meta Data – so this may be a work in progress)
- Content on every page across the main menu (i.e. facilities, about us, rooms)
- More creative use of the photo 'labels' on the lovely home page banner (e.g. instead of 'front door', something along the lines of 'Step into Luxury')
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: Level One, 518 Colombo Street, Christchurch