Newsletter : March 2015
Written by Steph Kendall
Welcome to the New Zealand Tourism Guide www.tourism.net.nz March 2015 issue. If you have news or comments, please email us news@tourism.net.nz.
In this March newsletter:
Advance to Go and Collect $200!
For the first time, a New Zealand destination has made it on to the Monopoly map beating 60 other major cities for a coveted 'coloured' spot. Queenstown has earned a Light Blue position in the 'Here & Now Edition' of the game being released to mark the famous game's 80th anniversary this September.
Queenstown was nominated by the game's maker, Hasbro and an online poll attracted over 4 million votes from 182 countries, asking people to pick from 80 different destinations. Queenstown came 18th, a ranking which decided the colour it would be. Queenstown will be Light Blue alongside Cape Town, South Africa and Taipei, Taiwan.
Queenstown CEO Graham Budd said, "Millions of people around the world over the next few years... will be seeing Queenstown there alongside New York and Amsterdam and those sorts of places. We'll get millions of eyeballs on us, who knows whether it might motivate people to say 'we might visit those places'."
Monopoly Here & Now: World Edition
- Dark Blue: Lima, Peru; Hong Kong, China
- Green: Riga, Latvia; Lisbon, Portugal; Istanbul, Turkey
- Yellow: Warsaw, Poland; Mexico City, Mexico; Santiago, Chile
- Red: Belfast, Ireland; Athens, Greece; Belgrade, Serbia
- Orange: London, England; Moscow, Russia; Tokyo, Japan
- Magenta: New York, NY, USA; Amsterdam, Netherlands; Sydney, Australia
- Light Blue: Queenstown, New Zealand; Cape Town, South Africa; Taipei, Taiwan
- Brown: Giethoorn, Netherlands; Madrid, Spain
The Amazing Cycle Ride
Amazing Race host Phil Keoghan is the face of a new campaign to attract US cycle tourists to New Zealand. Keoghan, a keen cyclist, has been hired by Tourism New Zealand to front digital and print campaigns in the USA.
New Zealander Keoghan has just completed a 5400km ride to retrace the route of the first English-speaking team in the Tour de France - soon to be released as a feature-length documentary.
The campaign was shot in December on Canterbury's Alps 2 Ocean Cycle Trail and the Queenstown Trail and will showcase the country as the ideal destination for a cycling holiday. Tourism New Zealand's Andrew Fraser said that securing Keoghan as the face of the campaign, which launched in the United States today, was a real coup. "Phil doesn't just have a large following in the States as host of The Amazing Race - he is also a passionate cyclist and proud Kiwi, and therefore the ideal person to be encouraging Americans to make New Zealand their next holiday destination."
The Amazing Race has been running in the US since 2001 and screens in more than 100 countries worldwide. In the US alone, it garnered 9.5 million viewers during its 2013-14 season. Tourism New Zealand figures showed about 318,000 international tourists participated in cycling during their time in New Zealand between 2008 and 2013.
Impressive Arrival Numbers in February
The combination of Chinese New Year and the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 resulted in impressive arrivals growth for the month of February says Tourism New Zealand's Kevin Bowler. Arrivals in February 2015 were up 14.0 per cent compared to the same period last year.
The data, released today by Statistics New Zealand, confirms that much of the growth is driven from the higher-value holiday visitor with holiday arrivals for the month up 24.2%. As a result, total arrivals for the year ending February are up 5.1%and holiday arrivals up 7.8%cent pushing New Zealand's total arrivals above 2.9 million annually for the first time ever.
China has seen staggering growth for the month with holiday arrivals up over 100 per cent. Growth for the month was further bolstered by the Cricket World Cup in February with marketing activity targeting key markets of Australia, India and the UK. The total arrivals from India was up by an impressive 36%.
Other growth markets included:
- Singapore - up 9.2%
- Japan - up 11.6%
- Korean - up 12.2%
- Brazil - up 12.4%
- Indonesia - up 13.3%
- USA - up 13.8%
- Germany - 11.8%
The largest source market, Australia, saw steady growth over the summer months with holiday arrivals up 1.4 per cent for the year ending February.
DIY Video Promotion on a Budget
Written by Steph Kendall
Remember the notion of the 'elevator speech'? The idea that you can deliver a summary of your business and mention its USP (unique selling proposition) to someone you've just bumped into in 30 to 120 seconds (the time it takes for an elevator ride). The online equivalent seems to be the YouTube video clip – often found on a website home page - in which a short video explains what a company does and what sort of experience you can expect.
If you haven't got one on your website yet and aren't sure where to start, you may find some of these hints useful:
Step 1: Start with a script
If you get your script right, the video making process should all flow in the right direction. Make sure your script catches people's attention, explains what your business does, keeps people engaged and makes them want to find out more. Keep it short – remember your elevator ride and aim for 60 seconds long – and finish with a call to action.
Step 2: Record the voiceover
The most professional sounding voice-over will need a decent microphone and a quiet space. Even if you want to capture the excitement of being 'on location', the viewer will still need to hear what's being said. Options include a USB microphone, free recording tools (search online) or even smartphone voice recorders (simply share/email the voice memo to yourself). Record yourself or recruit someone with a great speaking voice – someone who can inject passion and enthusiasm into the script!
Step 3: Film the visuals
Sketch out a storyboard before you start filming to ensure you end up with the material you need. Buy or borrow a video camera – teach yourself how to use it - find the right location, make sure your subject and background is well-lit and have fun! If you enjoy the process, the chances are that you'll end up with an entertaining video to watch too.
Step 4: Editing the video
Cheap options for putting together a voiceover and visuals include iMovie (Mac) and PowerPoint (PC and Mac). Use the tutorials to help you and you should be able to drop in your voiceover file and start with introductory visuals such as a background and logo. Use the razor, scissor or knife icon in your tool bar to cut down your video to fit in your voiceover and play around with transitions such as dissolve and fade to black. Look for the text tool "T" to add text to your clips.
Step 5: Add music
Once you're happy with how your video looks, add some music – but beware, you can't just load up your favourite tracks. Hunt around online for 'stock music websites' and purchase music that is royalty free and has a license for unrestricted web use. Line up the music track with the video (drag the music track to the right point on your timeline) and lower the volume on your track so it doesn't overpower the voiceover.
Step 6: Upload your video
If you are using YouTube, export your video in MPEG-4 format, ideally in high definition (1280×720 or higher). Watch your video to check that nothing has been lost in the encoding process. Upload your video and make sure you include a great title and start your video description with your URL.
Step 7: Know when it's not working!
If your best efforts fail to give the impression you want to create about your business, turn to the professionals (or seek an alternative way to promote and explain that elevator speech!)
10 Tips to Improve Business
Compiled by Steph Kendall
This month's tips focus on ways to build and improve awareness of your business brand in order to increase your clientele and improve your bottom line.
- Understand what your customer needs
The more you know about your customers, the more you are likely to understand their needs and expectations and find the right ways to achieve outstanding customer service. - Seek and analyse customer feedback
Don't make assumptions about how you are doing; look for ways to find out what your customers think about you. Check social media and forums to find out what current thinking is about your service (or that of competitors). - Give your customers WOW moments
We often talk about 'going the extra mile' well it really goes much further than that. Nothing is more powerful than going out of your way to give a customer something that they were not expecting or anticipating from you. - Invest in customer service training
Remember to train up new and existing staff in customer service – setting your own bar high for employees to reach demonstrates the importance of customer service to your business and the commitment you show to it. - Make it clear what you expect
Make sure your staff know what you expect from them every day – in terms of quality of service, behaviour and communication. Consistency is key to a professional and effective customer service team. - Reward staff who perform well
By offering recognition to individuals who are doing their job particularly well, you build up the notion of 'best practice' and encourage other staff to meet the same standards. - Build processes around your customers
Put yourself in your customers' shoes and look for ways to improve each step of their journey: from finding your business, interacting with you, booking and billing procedures and customer service. - Shadow your staff
Make sure you stay in touch with how your staff are operating and check that your systems and processes can result in an excellent service. Find out what kinks you can iron out. - Ask your staff
Your staff are literally at the business end, so talk to them on a regular basis to find out what they think could be improved - and ask the how and why. Hold a team 'think tank' to get creative and move beyond the box. - Send out spies
Send your staff out to 'mystery shop' with your competitors. Ask them to share their experiences with you and other staff - find out what best practices you can adopt and celebrate what you are doing better!
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 Wanaka Kayaks, Wanaka.
Firstly, many congratulations to whoever took the photographs for this website! The amazing scenic shots full of light and colour, the group shots of people simply having fun and the quality of the photography sing out to the casual visitor that 'this is fun, you MUST do it too!'
The clarity of the photographs is echoed in an easy to use, clean, modern and fresh design. The font on the sub-pages is large and easy to read with attractive headings picking up the colours of the logo. It is a little difficult to read the text over the images on the home page, which almost seem to go into 'design battle'. Whilst the large images behind the text are very appealing, people need to be able to read home page text without trying too hard. A little time spent proofreading would iron out a few typos on the sub-pages, but overall this website just oozes appeal.
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