PM Launches Latest Tourism Campaign in Australia

MEDIA RELEASE

Tuesday 21 April 2009

Prime Minister Launches Latest Tourism Campaign in Australia

The latest marketing campaign to promote New Zealand in Australia is being launched by Prime Minister and Minister of Tourism John Key today.

Two new advertisements come just six weeks after the Prime Minister announced an additional $2.5 million to boost New Zealand’s marketing in Australia.

Tourism New Zealand Chief Executive George Hickton says the additional funding will give New Zealand a greater presence in Australia, our largest tourism market.

“For the first time this year New Zealand will have a continuous television and marketing campaign running in Australia from Boxing Day, right through to June,” he says. “We have a lot of competition in Australia , both from other destinations and from the Australian states. It’s important that we are in front of potential Australian travellers as much as possible.”

One of the new advertisements promotes winter activities in New Zealand including, but not exclusively, ski. The other is a joint campaign with Air New Zealand. Over the next three weeks, Air New Zealand is giving away more than $2m in free domestic travel by providing a free one-way New Zealand domestic flight to any of its New Zealand ports with every one-way direct trans-Tasman flight purchased during the promotion.

Air New Zealand Deputy Chief Executive Norm Thompson says Australia is an extremely important and growing market for New Zealand tourism generating over $1.5 billion in foreign exchange earnings.

Air New Zealand operates 135 flights each week across the Tasman from seven Australian cities. For the duration of this campaign, in partnership with Tourism New Zealand, the airline is offering Australians a free domestic flight in conjunction with every trans-Tasman fare purchased.

“Its great to be able to use our extensive domestic network to open up all of New Zealand to Australian travellers, showcasing the huge variety that New Zealand has to offer,” Mr Thomson says.

The Air New Zealand offer is being showcased on the Australian version of newzealand.com with direct links to booking on Air New Zealand. Other industry offers also feature on the site.

Tourism New Zealand’s ‘What’s On’ campaign was originally devised to attract more Australian visitors to New Zealand in the ‘shoulder seasons’ – that is autumn and spring. Last year, for the first time, the campaign was used to promote travel to New Zealand in summer, and earlier this year it was used to attract early-bird ski bookings to New Zealand.

Australia is New Zealand’s largest visitor market supplying almost 980,000 arrivals in the year to February 2009. Over summer, visitor arrivals from Australia rose while those from many other markets declined.

ENDS

See how the campaign works for yourself by clicking on
http://www.newzealand.com/travel/Australia/?utm_source=wwwpage&utm_medium=insitebanner&utm_campaign=au_airnz_april09_www

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