Please distribute to all staff

March 18, 2010

In This Issue

• International Update
• Domestic Update
• C&I Update
• Trade familiarisations
• Media update
• Visitor Activity Statistics
• Events - April 2010
• Dates for the Diary

International Update

International Update: For any clarification of any of the information in this section please contact james@rotoruanz.com

Australia

Below is a summary of Rotorua Trade Activity over the past 3 weeks since the previous newsletter

DRTM famils

• Infinty – 19 – 21 Febuary
• Infinity – 13 – 14 March

Trade Marketing activity

• The travel Trade continues to support Rotorua well with joint venture Marketing activity.
• Kirra tours packaged holidays to Rotorua for the Sydney Travel Expo
• Value Tours is running a month long Rotorua campaign including deals in Sydney papers and promotion to their trade and consumer databases

Travel Expo in Sydney 6 / 7 March

Craig Hammond and Joey Rihari represented Rotorua at the Sydney Travel Expo at Homebush. Approximately 15,000 potential visitors visited the expo. There was a huge response from the public regarding the Win Your Way to Rotorua competition which was heavily promoted. Additional to this show specials to Rotorua in partnership with Kirra Tours were offered and a Holiday guide to Rotorua was available to visitors.

Product Manager Update

DRTM attended the TNZ organized Product Managers update in Sydney on the 1st and 2nd of March along with17 other RTO’s.

Other International News

Japan

Craig Bridge of BTM is currently representing Rotorua at Japan Kiwilink in Tokyo. We await feedback as to how the newly produced Japanese trade manual and ACE concept as mentioned in last months newsletter, was received by agents.

For more information on our Japanese market activities please contact james@rotoruanz.com

Product Listings on Tourism New Zealand Trade Website

Tourism New Zealand is wanting to list more product on their trade website. This is the site that is promoted to travel sellers worldwide and features an ‘Industry Guidebook’ where travel sellers can search for a particular product in any region of New Zealand.  Many Rotorua operators have a listing on the TNZ consumer site but not the trade site. If you are already registered with a consumer listing on the newzealand.com website, you simply need to log in and click on ‘add trade information’ and follow the process

For those that are not on either site you will need to create an account at register.nztb.co.nz and follow the registration process. Remember to make the trade listing factual and relevant to those selling your product rather than emotional/motivational content that you make towards a consumer.

Listings on Tourism New Zealand websites are free.

Domestic Update

Domestic Update: For any clarification of any of the information in this section please contact craig@rotoruanz.com

Domestic Media Schedule 2010/2011

Planning is now under way to formulate a media schedule for the Domestic advertising activity within the 2010/2011 financial year. Once again this is likely to include a good cross section of media & opportunities for extended messaging.

Domestic Newsletter

The autumn edition of the Rotorua e-newsletter is due to go out shortly to our domestic database. If you have any significant updates you would like communicated within this please e-mail Craig at craig@rotoruanz.com

Rotorua What’s On

Demand for the summer Rotorua Whats On visitor guide was extremely high with most of the stock almost running out throughout the country. The next autumn edition is currently on track to be available for delivery on the 19th March.

Social Media

Our Rotorua Facebook & Twitter accounts are continuing to grow steadily. Feel free to add us to your following list or let us know if you have an account that we are not yet currently following to ensure we include your news in our broadcasts.

i-SITE Visits

Training of front line staff on Rotorua city updates, new products etc got underway last year and will recommence from March 2010. If you have a new product updates feel free to let Craig know on craig@rotoruanz.com for inclusion in these visits.

C&I Update

C&I Update: For any clarification of any of the information in this section please contact denise@rotoruanz.com

Debbie Gee – Conference and Incentive Representative Australia

Marketing the premier conference and incentive destination of Rotorua within the eastern seaboard just got easier with the appointment of Debbie Gee (formerly Wootton) as Destination Rotorua’s new Conference and Incentive Representative – Australia. Debbie’s official start was the Monday 8 February.
Debbie comes to the table with a plethora of experience in the industry, following eight years at Rotorua’s The Organiser. Now based in Sydney, Debbie is relishing her new role and says her passion for her hometown brings a fresh new strength to her position in Sydney.
“I was born and bred in Rotorua and the city is my passion. It is exciting to watch the city step up to another level in the MICE market with the recent launch of the trans-Tasman flights by Air New Zealand. I love a new challenge and I am looking forward to working within the Australian market to promote Rotorua as the premier destination for conference, incentives and events.”
Destination Rotorua Conference and Incentive Manager Denise Siviter says she is thrilled to have Debbie on board and looks forward to working with her in the Australian market. The fact that Debbie grew up in Rotorua she will be able to answer any questions about the destination with confidence and has the advantage of knowing what will work for the individual clients requirements.

Australian sales activity

With the commencement of Debbie’s new role Denise Siviter spent three days in Sydney doing joint sales calls to the MICE industry. It also included time with Sharon and Heidi from CINZ to give them an update on new developments.
Debbie will be doing weekly sales calls to PCO’s and Corporate companies to educate the market on Rotorua as a new and exciting alternate NZ destination.
Requests for quotes out of Australia are keeping Debbie busy and once again confirms confidence in the market place and the need for another key NZ destination.

Famil’s

Three PCO’s, one media and one Air New Zealand representative from Sydney and Brisbane were in Rotorua over the weekend of 13th February. Watch out for the write up in the CIM magazine. More famils are being considered, dates TBC 

AIME

Debbie and Denise represented DRTM at AIME under the 100% pure NZ banner 2-3 March in Melbourne. With well over 35 appointments and 12 potential pieces of business for 2011 and 2012 the interest in Rotorua was well up on previous years. This not only confirms that business confidence is on the improve but also that Rotorua is now able to pitch itself in the Australian market as the next hot destination for NZ with its Sydney direct flights.

Media

Be sure to read your February copy of Micenet which was hot off the press for AIME. A good write up from Brad Foster editor on page 26 and 27.
In the April edition of CIM Magazine read the write up from Louis Allen – editor, who recently participated in a familirisation from Sydney.

New Zealand sales activity

Auckland - Melissa is in Auckland on sales calls during the week of 15 March calling on a selection of Professional Conference Organisers and potential  Corporate clients. This follows on from the Mega famil held in August 2009
Wellington – Melissa will be in Wellington meeting with Professional Conference Organisers and potential Corporate clients the week of 22nd March.

Famils and Quotes

A mega familirisation is scheduled from Christchurch and Wellington in May, Auckland will be later in the year.
A number of proposals over the past couple of months for Rotorua are resulting in some up and coming smaller familirisations which Melissa will be hosting.

Meetings 2010

The Convention Bureau has secured the area utilized last year at Sky City for 2010. Planning is well underway and a meeting was recently held with operators attending under Destination Rotorua. The dates for Meetings are 23 and 24 June.

2010 Planner

The 2010 planner has arrived and will be distributed within the next couple of weeks to the C&I operators and the Convention Bureau’s database, the remainder of the planners will be used at trade shows and taken into the Australian market . The DRTM website has a PDF version for downloading.

Trade Familiarisations

Thank you for those involved and your continued support of Australian Trade Famils to Rotorua.

• Infinty – 19 – 21 Febuary
• Infinity – 13 – 14 March

Media Update

Media Update: For any clarification of any of the information in this section please contact heather@rotoruanz.com

February and early March have followed the same trend as January, with a large increase in international media famil requests.  While past records show that Destination Rotorua Tourism Marketing handles around 80 famils a year, we will have organized more than half that number by the end of March and all of these from countries outside New Zealand. This exposure is split fairly evenly between both print media and filming, although there are two famils which, while owned by large media corporations in Fairfax and Channel 9 are principally for online travel information, which is a rapid growth area on an international basis.

Results of famils have been great, especially with the arrival in early March of top Holland chef Herman den Blijker’s reality competition series which brought to Rotorua more than 30 cast and crew for one of the episodes.

Rotorua also played host to the film crew for Alive! With Aaron Carotta, a US national cable TV series with a potential 86 million viewers devoted to adventure activities around the world. This will screen in May this year and is seriously good exposure for Rotorua in a desired target market. A big thanks to the operators who worked with this crew for their hard work in ensuring it all went very smoothly in what was a tightly-packed itinerary. 

What was pleasing with this was that initially, the crew had thought to give Rotorua two days – by the time the itineraries had been sorted, the city had them for all but two days of their entire New Zealand stay. Early news is that the footage is spectacular. Two of the crew will be back in New Zealand – and Rotorua - later this year.

We also hosted Getaway, the popular Australian programme and had film famils for  Canadian, Korean and Japanese national TV breakfast shows.

Visitor Activity Statistics

New Zealand Tourism Industry Monitor – Mar 2010

(Source:  Covec – Tourism Industry Monitor Mar 2010)
Results from the NZ Tourism Industry Monitor indicate New Zealand tourism businesses expect demand to increase by 0.7% and profitability to increase by 1.3% for the three months commencing 1 March 2010 over the same period of the previous year.  41% of respondents have a positive outlook of demand increasing over this period, while 26% have a neutral outlook and 33% a negative outlook.  The Waikato, Bay of Plenty and Central Plateau regional outlook for growth in demand is for demand to fall 0-4%. 

International Visitor Arrivals (IVA) to New Zealand – Jan 2010

(Source:  Statistics NZ – External Migration Jan 2010)
International visitor arrivals to New Zealand for the month of January 2010 were up 5.2% over January 2009.  Arrivals were up from Australia (up 15.7%), USA (up 0.2%), Japan (up 15.5%), Germany (up 10.6%), Korea (up 29.8%) and Canada (up 4.4%).  There were fewer arrivals from UK (down 0.6%) and China (down 33.9%).

Rotorua Commercial Accommodation Monitor (CAM) – Jan 2010

(Source:  Statistics NZ – Commercial Accommodation Monitor Jan 2010)
Visitor nights spent in Rotorua commercial accommodation for the month of January 2010 were up 8.5% over January 2009 (versus +4.4% nationally) - domestic visitor nights were up 5.8% (versus +2.3% nationally) and international visitor nights were up 12.0% (versus +7.9% nationally).  For the same period, all sectors of Rotorua commercial accommodation had positive growth in visitor nights – hotels up 9.4%, motels up 6.2%, holiday parks up 8.3% and backpackers up 13.7%. 

Rotorua Attraction & Activities Monitor – Jan 2010

(Source:  APR Consultants  – Rotorua Attraction & Activities Monitor Jan 2010)
Visits to Rotorua Attraction & Activities Monitor participant businesses for the month of January 2010 were up 1.9% over January 2009 - domestic attraction visits were down 4.2% and international attraction visits were up 5.2%.

Upcoming Statistics NZ releases

International Visitor Arrivals to NZ:  February 2010 will be released 19 March 2010
Commercial Accommodation Monitor: February 2010 will be released 12 April 2010

Most of the New Zealand tourism monitors can be freely downloaded from tourismresearch.govt.nz

For more information about Rotorua visitor statistics or to subscribe to any of the Rotorua specific tourism monitors please contact Gina on DDI (07) 349 7289 or gina@rotoruaNZ.com

Events - April 2010

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

Dates for the diary

Blue = Destination Rotorua Marketing participation

2010

25 - 30 April, South American Roadshow - Brazil and Chile

24th - 27th May, TRENZ - Auckland

22 – 24 June, Meetings 2010 – Auckland

22 – 23 July, Australian Business Events Expo – Sydney

25 - 29 July, UK IMA Workshops - London

2 - 9 August, Grand Pacific Roadshow - Australia

21 September, PAICE Plus Expo – Sydney

13 - 17 October, Kiwilink Asia - Singapore

December, PCO Conference – Tasmania

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.

David Whorwood
Marketing Manager
Destination Rotorua Marketing
Private Bag 3007, Rotorua
Phone +64 7 349 7280
Fax +64 7 349 4133
marketing@rotoruaNZ.com