Newsletter : September 2014
Written by Steph Kendall
Welcome to the New Zealand Tourism Guide www.tourism.net.nz September 2014 issue. If you have news or comments, please email us news@tourism.net.nz.
In this September newsletter:
Every Day a Different Journey
Tourism New Zealand's launched its new 'Every day a different journey' campaign this month, which is aimed to entice Australian travellers to visit the North and South Islands. Marketing activity includes TV advertising promoting key campaign regions, supported by digital, online and social media activity driving traffic to campaign pages on newzealand.com. Activity with Flight Centre and Air New Zealand which will directly target their consumer databases, digital and social channels.
The campaign will once again target potential travellers in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland with a focus on the main metropolitan areas of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane as the largest source markets of Australian visitors to New Zealand.
Premium Marketing Targeted at the French
Three French luxury travel magazines experienced the crème de la crème of New Zealand recently, with their stories covering over 80 pages of destination New Zealand coverage literally worth a million dollars of advertising space.
Luxury travel magazine Voyage de Luxe visited New Zealand in January 2014. Its May edition - a 40-page, plus cover and story - featured six luxury hotels and lodges from across New Zealand.
Hotel and Lodge's July feature focused on New Zealand's beautiful landscapes, plus a selection of the country's luxury lodges and featured Waiheke Island, Auckland, Queenstown, Fiordland and Wanaka and three luxury lodges: The Boatshed, Matakauri and Lodge at the Hills.
Fiordland was again in the weekly news magazine Le Figaro's 12-page feature on the best "forests in the world", where Milford Track was chosen. Supported by French tour operator Club Faune, Le Figaro Magazine visited New Zealand in March.
Collectively, these publications would have reached approximately 500,000 readers. Tourism New Zealand has identified France as a target market for its premium strategy designed to grow the number of high-value visitors to New Zealand.
Chinese Visitors Get Easy to Understand NZ Guide
Tourism New Zealand recently released the latest version of its Chinese visitor information guide, including important information about road rules, signage and driving in New Zealand.
Visitors arriving from China can pick up a copy of the brochure as they pass through the Customs arrival area in the Auckland International Airport. The brochure features five themed itineraries including Food and Wine, Adventure, Photography, Romance and Best Scenic Tour.
Other section updates include New Zealand's current population and information about the airlines that offer services between China and New Zealand.
Find out more about how you can help Chinese visitors get the best experience of your business during their stay.
Getting Started with Newsletter Marketing
By Steph Kendall
Creating a newsletter is an excellent way to maintain regular contact with people in your target markets and your media contacts whether delivered by email or 'snail mail'. No matter what type of newsletter you choose to produce – whether a 12 page glossy, colour brochure or a 2 page digital publication, the same basic rules apply. Namely, your newsletter MUST be attractive, informative and easy to read.
Getting started
- Be clear in your mind who your audience is and write to engage their interests
- Decide what the newsletter will be called and what content you want to include
- Create a clean, uncluttered design that becomes your 'newsletter template' – avoid too many different typefaces
- Ask readers to get in touch with you to generate interaction and start a relationship with you
- Keep articles and sentences short and use easy-to-understand language (not industry jargon)
- Select evocative and high quality images for inclusion
- Make sure you have an 'unsubscribe' link or option for digital and print newsletters
- Send your newsletter regularly (weekly, monthly or bi-monthly)
- Market newsletter subscription in other areas of your business
- Don't be afraid to write with a 'friendly tone of voice', but avoid writing too much about yourself and your personal life – remember, keep to the point of the exercise and make it about business.
Generally speaking, newsletters are an effective, relatively low-cost marketing and communications tool. Have fun writing yours – your enthusiasm for it can be infectious for your readers!
10 Tips to Improve Business
Compiled by Steph Kendall
As we all know, tourism is a highly competitive area with travellers shopping around more than ever to get the overseas or domestic holiday they want. Decisions about what holiday to book are often taken based on what experiences are promised; it is no longer about the destination itself and the 'product'. Here are a few quick tips to consider which you could use to help entice 'experience seekers' your way:
- Maximise your location – think about what experiences you can offer and promote them in your brochures and marketing material (e.g. wonderful views and scenery, heritage places, wineries, walking trails)
- Think of your competitors' businesses as opportunities/experiences for your customers – provide your customers with information about other things to do in the local area
- Keep your product fresh and highlight unique or new experiences on offer in your marketing
- Provide your customers with opportunities to experience your way of life – help shear a sheep, mix a wine blend, learn how to make homemade jams, etc.
- Offer active and adventurous experiences – experiences that they write home about!
- Provide opportunities for your customers to meet and spend time with the locals
- Create a brag factor to help with that all essential word of mouth marketing– "I've done something amazing that you haven't done..."
- Highlight the USP (unique selling point) of your business. If you can't do it anywhere else in the world, shout out about it!
- Make sure you write about the experience you offer in your brochures, websites and media material in engaging language
- Encourage your customers to share their experiences with you, so you can use their feedback to promote your business to others.
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 Beaufort House Akaroa.
This website is elegantly and traditionally designed reflecting the style of accommodation offered and is particularly notable for the striking photographs used on the home page. The home page also champions its awards and commendations, has an easy-to-navigate and clear menu as well as an easy-to-read font.
The target market would appear to be affluent, older travellers as the lack of social media, newsletter marketing and search engine optimisation suggests. There may be some intention to attract younger couples planning weddings, although at the moment much more could be made of the relevant sub-page and home page. A few pages would benefit from content, but nonetheless this is an elegant brochure website in progress.
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