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November 9, 2011

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In This Issue

• International Update
• Domestic Update
• Rotorua Convention Bureau
• Marketing & Communications Update
• Online Update
• Upcoming Events

International Update

James Fitzgerald
International Manager
james@rotoruaNZ.com - DDI: +64 7 351 7108

OPPPORTUNITY: The inaugural GNZTR Explore Roadshow in Auckland

The 8 Regional Tourism Organisations of the Great New Zealand Touring Route (GNZTR) marketing collective have agreed to organise a large trade event in Auckland on Wednesday 28th March at Eden Park in the ASB lounge.

It will target all sectors of the visitor industry in Auckland showcasing the wide offering of the central North Island visitor regions. DRM highly recommends that businesses attend. A prospectus was sent out last Friday to all attractions, accommodation and hospitality businesses. If you would like more information or to discuss the opportunity further, please e-mail James.

China

Shelley Huang is now in China on her first visit since starting as the Asian Market Executive. Part of Shelley's visit will focus on training Semi FIT travel agents in conjunction with Tourism New Zealand (TNZ) as well as airline meetings to discuss promotional opportunities. She is also raising the awareness of Rotorua amongst the travel industry in China. She will be visiting Beijing, Shainghai, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Hong Kong and Nanjing. Shelley and James also spent two weeks in Auckland in October meeting numerous IBO's, Airlines and media introducing new product developments and discussing opportunities for early 2012.

Australia

Joey is currently in Queensland as part of a North Island training initiative being run by Tourism New Zealand. This will see the entire reservation teams of Infinity Holidays and Travelpoint/AOT congregate for two evenings of in-depth product and destinational training in Brisbane.  

DRM in conjunction with GNZTR is also involved in an Australia wide central North Island promotion with specialist wholesaler ANZCRO. This will see Rotorua product and experiences featured in campaigns by retail travel chains and a specific tactical New Zealand book produced and distributed through the entire ANZCRO agent distribution network. Over 50,000 copies of the book are being produced.

International famils

Domestic Update

Craig Hammond
Domestic Manager
craig@rotoruaNZ.com - DDI: +64 7 351 7102

What's Happened?

No. 1 Queen St

'Taste Rotorua' Function

According to 40 top food critics and writers based in Auckland, Rotorua delivered on its key message of being an urban destination with unique food and beverage offerings as well as having great coffee, at the Taste Rotorua event at #1 Queen St on Tuesday 4th October. 

With the help of Mokoia Restaurant executive chef Ervin Garde, Charles Royale and Croucher's Brewing, DRM hosted some of New Zealand's most influential foodies. See what they thought of the event in the Media Results section.

Trudi and Mark Nelson - Fresh in the Kitchen website and broadcasters
We were very impressed. The food was fabulous, the venue impressive and I learnt heaps more about Rotorua, despite a visit last year. I look forward to going back.

Theme weeks – Family holidays & learn the haka

During the school holidays the #1 Queen Street site was promoting the key message that Rotorua is an ideal family holiday destination. The live petting zoo was a huge hit with queues of people waiting to get inside to pat the lambs, goats and pigs. ZM were on-site providing live air feeds and by all accounts the live interview with the pig was absolute radio gold! Rotorua packs were provided to each person as they left the zoo.

Leading up to the RWC final Rotorua taught kids and indeed the nation how to do the haka – properly! Aware that lounge rooms throughout New Zealand would be pounding the floors in support of the All Blacks, Rotorua took a prime role educating the country on how it's done. Staff also engaged with holidaying families learning the haka, pushing Rotorua's family destination message.

Rotorua No.1 Queen Information Desk - Results

In the seven weeks from the #1 Queen St Rotorua launch on September 8th to the RWC final weekend in October:

• 2500 - Rotorua Visitor Guides distributed
• Either taken from the stand or handed out during our promotions. (Note: this is over 3 times the amount of Arrival magazines taken from Auckland Airport for this time of year)

• 1307 - Direct Contacts
• These are visitors directly spoken to and assisted by our staff about Rotorua specifically

• $6000+ Product sales
•  Total sales booked on site in Auckland prior to traveling to Rotorua

Incredible exposure at the RWC Final

The RWC final once again proved that location was key to DRM securing Rotorua with unmatched exposure opportunities in Auckland:

• The Rotorua themed # 1 Queen St Café / Bar turnover was 28 times higher than its normal turnover during RWC final day alone
• Foot traffic has increased over 10 times its normal daily average of 25,000
• People 50 deep outside the café watched the RWC final on screens from behind the #1 Queen St barriers

What's Coming Up?

No.1 Queen Summer

Our summer focus is now underway for No 1 Queen St and here are the main promotional channels we will be focusing on:

• Information Desk
• Rotorua i-SITE Team Leader Winiatia Tamaki has been confirmed to remain onsite and staffing our Rotorua Information Desk throughout Summer.
• Cruise
• Key dates have been highlighted to target cruise ships arriving in Auckland, especially those which are then moving down to Tauranga. Key focus for us is to position and sell Rotorua before the passenger even arrives in Tauranga.
• A special Rotorua cruise brochure has been developed to aid in this promotion and these will be handed out when passengers disembark
• Wini's roster has been worked around these cruise dates to ensure we have Rotorua knowledgeable staff on site and new signage has now been put in place promoting the fact we are there to assist!
• Rotorua Brochure Rack
• As discussed earlier the Rotorua dedicated brochure rack will remain onsite until March 2012

• Collateral
• Specially designed collateral such as the Rotorua quick guide, Taste Rotorua etc will remain available within the café and in brochure racks

• Key Messages
• Wedding season – promoting Rotorua as an ideal Hens, Stag, Honeymoon and wedding venue destination
• Family – Once again showcasing the fantastic range of experiences Rotorua offers Auckland families leading up to summer holidays

Rotorua Locals week – VFR Campaign

Launching November 7th – 13th we are once again excited about stimulating the local community to engage with your attractions and in turn helping develop Rotorua ambassadors for the peak VFR season over summer.

The landing page and flyer are complete and radio, print and social media promotions are now in full swing! Ta Awara FM and More FM have already confirmed live interviews.

rotoruaNZ.com/locals

Summer Domestic e-newsletter

The Domestic Summer e-newsletter is due to go out early December so please feel free to send any news or developments to Craig for inclusion. Remember this is a consumer database group of over 15,000 with an interest in repeat visits to Rotorua so well worth the time to send in material. The due date for this is 25th November

Rediscover Rotorua - Domestic Targeted Household Mail drop

It's all about rediscovering Rotorua! Tailored to reach our targeted domestic demographic markets in Auckland, Waikato and Bay of Plenty, DRM is about to launch this brochure with bookable deals in mid-November.

The key objective is to influence revisiting Rotorua, to increase length of stays and to convert some current day visitors into over-night stays via a number of multi-pass attraction and accommodation deals supported by key messages around family holidays and short breaks.

An online component will run side by side with this promotion including a landing page on rotoruaNZ.com, online banner ads, EDM and social media promotions to ensure Rotorua is well placed in the domestic mindset for summer holidays.

Rotorua Convention Bureau

Denise Siviter
Rotorua Convention Bureau Manager
denise@rotoruaNZ.com - DDI: +64 7 351 7106

IMEX – USA

Rotorua along with Auckland, Queenstown, Tourism NZ, Air NZ and Conference Incentives NZ recently participated in the first IMEX in America. The dual destination was a focus with Auckland being the gateway, Rotorua being the cultural and geothermal hub and Queenstown the key of the south Island. The result has been some good level of interest through Incentive houses and a couple of corporate clients the Bureau are currently working with.

ASTW – Australian Society of Travel Writers

The Australian Society of Travel Writers (ASTW) were blown away by the incredible time they had in Rotorua during their annual conference. Read about what they got up to here. Rotorua tourism operators should be proud of the feedback received which can be seen in this story. DRM is now monitoring the media results to come. The Conference came about after a relationship was formed over 12 months ago with the President Bev Malzard who visited Rotorua on a familiarisation hosted by DRM and the Convention Bureau.

New Zealand

Work has been going on behind the scenes in the New Zealand market following up on Auckland and Wellington companies interested in visiting Rotorua or receiving information about the destination. We hope to be able to secure some famils in early 2012 from this. The Bureau is seeing a slow return to corporate inquiries following the RWC which had a huge impact on C&I with most staying clear of conferences, quoting and famils.

Upcoming Events

Thursday 10th November – Taste Rotorua for the Auckland conference market at #1 Queen Street.

4th – 6th December – PCO Conference, Auckland, A group of operators will be exhibiting alongside the Convention Bureau. A familiarisation down to Rotorua will follow on the Wednesday morning and will involve several days of activity with the group departing on the Saturday.

Australia

Debbie continues to work hard in the Australian market with a focus on the corporate market, Sydney is still our main focus but recently a trip to Melbourne generated some new leads. Melbourne will continue to be on our radar along with Brisbane and Canberra.

Hosted dinner in Sydney, recently a dinner was hosted by the Rotorua Convention Bureau and a small group of Platinum and Gold members, alongside Air NZ. The venue in Surrey Hills was quaint and exclusive. The guests were a selection of clients we are currently working with in regards to quotes and bids for Rotorua.

Upcoming Events

AIME  - 20 -22 February 2012 – The RCB will be participating at Australia's largest Incentive, Meeting and Events Trade show in Melbourne along with other key NZ destinations including Conference Incentive NZ all flying under the 100% Pure banner.

Marketing & Communications Update

Kelly Stewart
Marketing & Communications Manager
kelly@rotoruaNZ.com - DDI: +64 7 351 7103

Jenha White
Trade Marketing Coordinator
jenha@rotoruaNZ.com - DDI: +64 7 351 7107

Rugby World Cup 2011

What a marvellous event and how fantastic it is having our All Blacks proudly and officially now being recognised as the best team in the world! 

Rotorua has enjoyed increased international visitor activity particularly during the time when RWC games were hosted here. You couldn't miss the patriotic Irish and we also had many French, English, Australian and Russian visitors here over the last two months. 

The media coverage for Rotorua has been very positive and we are still collating the full results of the media famils. Thank you to all those operators who provided RWC accredited media with deals. If you have had correspondence from international RWC media and have received media results, please let us know by sending them to Jenha White: jenha@rotoruaNZ.com

Media Famils October 2011

Domestic PR Plan

We are well into the delivery of the Domestic PR Plan which is charged with changing Aucklanders perceptions of Rotorua as an urban destination.  #1 Queen St has been one of the key vehicles to drive the strategy with promotional activity and hosted events proving to be very successful. As a general summary we've had a +400% increase in Rotorua being featured as a destination in domestic media alone since March. You can see some of the media results rotoruanz.com/media/results

In Essence update

It's incredible to see how much is going on in Rotorua with a jam packed first draft of Summer 2012 In Essence sent to the designers. In Essence will be featuring a new look and layout – so keep your eyes peeled for its distribution at the end of November. It will also now be a quarterly publication, so please continue to send in product updates as they occur to jenha@rotoruanz.com for consideration.  

Media Results

Media Results have been flooding in and PDF's can be seen at rotoruanz.com/media/results/

There has also been a great response to #1 Queen St with Tania explaining the marketing plan on AMP Business and with The Rotorua Duck and the OGO making appearances on Breakfast.

The Taste NZ function was hugely successful with write ups on Food & Beverage NZ, Thread.co.nz, Catering Plus, Food News and the Daily Post. Rotorua's café culture was also featured in Julie Le Clerc's Café Secrets series and this Thread blog on Rotorua is well worth a read. German comedian Bernhard Hoecker filmed some entertaining footage which can be seen here last week as well.

New Collateral developed

New transitional collateral has been developed to help communicate Rotorua's key messages at #1 Queen St.

1. A general Rotorua DLE brochure – Approximately 3000 brochures have been handed out over the last two months. 
2. A Taste Rotorua brochure – to assist in delivering the urban messaging around great food and beverage offerings in Rotorua.
3. A Cruise brochure – to be handed out to passengers in Auckland and Tauranga. 

New RotoruaNZ.com media resource

Throw every bit of news DRM's way because we love to know what you're business is up to and so do the media!

Previously the rotoruanz.com website Media section had a Product Update page, however this has been changed to Industry News to cover a broader scope. All media (radio, newspapers, broadcast and Tourism New Zealand) will be accessing this page for news leads. Let us help your business get word out about what's happening!

Online Update

Adrian Hodge
Application Developer
adrian@rotoruaNZ.com - DDI: +64 7 351 8695

Website listing renewal time

If you have a premium full page listing on rotoruaNZ.com, it's now due for renewal. We have seen a dramatic rise in unique visits to the site along with increased social media activity and our Business Plan sees the website being a core channel for consumers and trade for the future.  

In fact we will be redoing a number of sections within the website over the next quarter to better optimize the site and continue our drive for best practise. Some of the sections we are about to upgrade are:

• Higher end offer for Rotorua  (formerly Luxury Rotorua)
• Conventions and Incentives
• Asian websites – starting with Chinese language and product
• Media and trade channels.

We're conscious of the ever increasing demand for your marketing dollars from all quarters and inline with DRM's ambition to offer greater value to the industry, we have restructured the annual website fees to be able to offer you a reduction of $200 on your annual fee.

The NEW annual online subscription fee for 2011/2012 is $300 plus GST and covers;

1. Your current featured listings on the RotoruaNZ website.
2. Fees for extra pages, foreign language pages, banner advertising and micro-site featured listings remain additional and unchanged.

To clarify a few things

• Moving forward bookings will be on an annual basis commencing 1 July each year for the 12 months thereafter. 
• The listing fee is used to upgrade and create content for the website, some of which we try and get for free but most of which we need to pay for/ create and reformat. It also contributes to maintaining a schedule of software and platform upgrades and also link into best practise opportunities.
• Due to the rate reduction in the current year - all current listings have had the benefit of the new rate from 1 July 2011. Renewal at $300 will cover from 1 July 2011 to 31 June 2012
• New listings can list for $150+GST which covers the period from today to 31 June 2012.
• If you are listed with Bookit - we are able to show your business on the DRM website by displaying your Bookit availability calendar.

For all existing listings could you please confirm your renewal by the 31st November 2011. For any new listings please do not hesitate to contact me.

Click here to signup or to renew your website listing on rotoruaNZ.com.

Upcoming Events

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