Please distribute to all staff

July 17, 2009

In This Issue

• Australian Update
• Backpacker Activity
• Activity Plans – 09/10
• Rotorua Convention Bureau Update
• Trade familiarisations
• Media update
• Visitor Activity Statistics
• Events - August 2009
• Dates for the Diary

Australian Update

Australian visitors to New Zealand seem to be peaking currently and we hope Rotorua is receiving it’s fair share. Some projects currently underway in Australia to help build us up towards trans Tasman operations are as follows:

• Schweppes promotion to 12.7 million households giving away four family holidays to Rotorua
• Promotions with ANZCRO for a Spring Campaign
• Participation with Newmans on their Roadshow – 27 – 31 July
• Frontliner Training and Product Manager calls with 5 operators – 17 – 21 August
• Appointment of PR Advisor, Hannah Blake has already resulted in two media visits – Men’s Fitness Magazine and Wellbeing magazine. 
• Exploration of a viral consumer campaign for October
• Ongoing frontline famils – 150 frontline staff targeted for the 09/10 year.  10 Flight Centre scheduled for September.
• Trade and C & I newsletters

Please keep us posted of your Australian activity and news as we are keen to increase our PR activity in Australia with the appointment of Hannah.   

Backpacker Activity

DRTM is planning some backpacker activity later in the year.  If you are actively involved in the backpacker segment and may wish to be part of this please send James an email at james@rotoruaNZ.com

www.NZBackpack.com

Some of you may be aware of the progress that NZ Backpack has made over the previous few months. They now have their new website live nzbackpack.com, so please go and check it out.

The aim of nzbackpack.com is to showcase the scale, the quality and the variety of New Zealand Backpacking. The organization will support this by advocating for the sector with government and tourism agencies. All profits from advertising income will be used by the NZBackpack.com committee for advocacy issues on your behalf. There is also a backpacking sector dedicated conference too, that will be held in September in Auckland.

There are 3 categories of membership for NZbackpack.com. For more information visit the website or email Jim at jim@reservegroup.co.nz who is dealing with subscription enquiries

Activity Plans – 09/10

The 09/10 Activity Plan has now been completed.  Copies are available by emailing ruth@rotoruanz.com.  The main changes in our strategy this year is to focus on marketing to interest groups.  We have identified 9 types and these will vary depending on the origin market. 

Family, Outdoor, Adventure, Mountain biking, Water based, Luxury, Maori Culture, Geothermal and Wellness and our main targets.  C & I of course is an ongoing target market.

New print and online templates are being designed to speak specifically to our target markets.  For example the attached with the headline “Rip into Rotorua’ is designed for the domestic family market.

The website is also being rejigged to reflect talking to these groups specifically and this new look will be in place after August.  A lot of work has gone into keyword searches to ensure we are on the mark.

Rotorua Convention Bureau Update

Four Famils have been through since the last update:

Katrina Perry from Magnet Design
Beca staff from various North Island offices
The FCm Travel national sales team came to town for a strategy meeting and famil
Neva Morrisey of Ci Events from Melbourne

Peter McDougall from Go Vita will be here this weekend, prior to Meetings.

The invites for the Rotorua Mega famil  to be held 20/21 August have gone out and we have around 60 registered so far. Please let Melissa at the bureau know if you have anyone that you wish to receive one of these invites.

Meetings Tradeshow is on in Auckland next week with both Ruth and Melissa attending in their cocktail gear as the area has been themed up as a Cocktail lounge with theming to suit.

Planning for the 09/10 year continues with the schedule for networking functions with industry partners taking shape. If you see value in joint product updates to clients or joint networking functions, please let Ruth or Melissa know.

To see our latest C&I client newsletter, click here

Trade Familiarisations

June 16 – 17th - Indian Education Group - India

June 23rd – 26th - TNZ Luxury Famil - India and Singapore

June 27th – 29th - Newmans Reservations - Australia

Media Update

Tourism NZ is starting to focus on PR for the 2011 Rugby World Cup and is on the lookout for rugby-related stories. Teams with a difference, outstanding players, products that may be related… anything will be considered. High quality rugby images are also needed. Please send anything you may have to Justine. All relevant ideas will be forwarded to TNZ for inclusion on its media website.

Thanks to those of you participating in the Daily Post famil programme. This is ongoing, with business editor Julie Taylor doing famils as often as time permits. DRTM’s column also continues to run fortnightly.

We received The Biggest Loser result this week, following filming of the Australian show here in February. The Rotorua segments will be available to view on our website soon.

Other great media results can be viewed online at rotoruanz.com/media/results

Visitor Activity Statistics

New Zealand Tourism Industry Monitor – July 09

July survey results were not available at time of preparing this newsletter.  Click here to link to the latest Tourism Industry Monitor results.  

New Zealand International Visitor Arrivals (IVA) – May 09

International visitor arrivals to New Zealand for the month of May 2009 were up 1.0% over May 2008.  Arrivals were up from Australia (up 15.8%), USA (up 1.8%), and Germany (up 11.7%).  There were fewer arrivals from UK (down 3.6%), China (down 32.8%), Japan (down 41.8%) Korea (down 54.4%) and Canada (down 3.6%).

Rotorua Commercial Accommodation Monitor (CAM) – May 09

Visitor nights spent in Rotorua commercial accommodation for the month of May 2009 were down 3.8% over May 2008 (versus -0.6% nationally) - domestic visitor nights were down 2.1% (versus -0.5% nationally) and international visitor nights were down 6.2% (versus ‑0.9% nationally).  For the same period, sectors of Rotorua commercial accommodation with positive growth in visitor nights were hosted (up 18.0%), holiday parks (up 16.5%) and motels (up 1.8%).  Sectors with negative growth were hotels (down 10.4%) and backpackers (down 11.1%). 

Rotorua Attraction Monitor – May 09

Visits to Rotorua Attraction Monitor participant businesses for the month of May 2009 were down 16.9% over May 2008 - domestic attraction visits were down 3.1% and international attraction visits were down 23.7%.

Most of the tourism monitors are freely available by subscription and can be downloaded from rotoruaNZ.com. 
For more information about Rotorua visitor statistics or to subscribe to any of the monitors please contact Gina on DDI (07) 349 7289 or  gina@rotoruaNZ.com

Events - August 2009

For more information or to check out the latest events, go to rotoruaNZ.com/events

Dates for the diary

Blue = Destination Rotorua Marketing participation

2009

22 –23 July, Meetings, Auckland

20 –29 July, UK IMA Meeting, London

26 August, DRTM Industry Forum, Rotorua

27 – 31 August, Newmans Roadshow, Australia

11 –12 August, ITOC Conference, Gisborne

17 – 21 Aug, Australian Frontliner Training, Brisbane / Sydney

20 – 21 Aug, Auckland C & I Mega Famil, Rotorua

1 – 5 September, SE Asia Trade Training, Singapore / Thailand

7 –11 September, Kiwilink India, India

7–8 October, CINZ Conference, Blenheim

Recipient and sender details

We have collected your contact details. This information is collected to enable us to keep you up to date with tourism news pertinent to the Rotorua tourism market and keep you informed of the activities of the Destination Rotorua Marketing office. We will not disclose your contact details to third parties.

Ruth Crampton
Assistant General Manager
Destination Rotorua Marketing
Private Bag 3007, Rotorua
Phone +64 7 349 7280
Fax +64 7 349 4133
marketing@rotoruaNZ.com