Industry Webinar - Notes in brief

Destination Coromandel hosted a Zoom meeting today encouraging the visitor industry to start preparing for the road to recovery. The first of many steps is simple:

1.     Make sure you’re signed up to our industry newsletter. If you’re receiving this email job done!
Please forward it to other businesses, groups and associations in the Thames Coromandel and Hauraki Districts to help encourage visitor sector businesses to get involved.
Sign up by scrolling to the bottom of the home page on  www.thecoromandel.com

2.     List your business on www.thecoromandel.com

For the year ahead there’ll be no charge to list on www.thecoromandel.com as we look to stimulate travel to The Coromandel.

https://www.thecoromandel.com/industry/marketing-options/website-sign-up/

We indicated that we are preparing to do a motivational visitor guide  - no paid advertising – to replace the existing visitor guide once it runs out.

We are also working on developing 360 and Virtual Reality footage to help provide inspiration for those wanting to travel here. Feel free to send any footage you may have to complement our content.

Domestic Marketing Activity

We have presented a flexible strategy that will enable us to respond to official travel advice and the corresponding Covid-19 Alert Levels. In brief they are:

Winter

As has occurred in the last two years we’ll consider continuing the #goodforyoursoul winter campaign promoting local food, art and retail therapy, wellness experiences to our drive market (including Auckland, Waikato, Bay of Plenty). Activities and accommodation that are open can be included in the promotion.

How to Get Involved: We are working on no-cost options for the industry to get involved regardless of whether travel can occur or not, so we can continue to promote The Coromandel #goodforyoursoul. We’ll be in touch with further details of how you can participate in the coming weeks.

Spring

We’ll reactive the Take it Easy campaign that was paused in early March. This campaign combined previous shoulder season promotions for the Hauraki Rail Trail and Coromandel Coastal Walkway, and included other hike and bike options throughout the region. This is likely to appeal to those who want to escape (and maintain physical distance and stay within their bubbles).

How to Get Involved: The industry will be invited to work together to create packages profiled on www.thecoromandel.com so our target market can simply turn up and Take it Easy.

Summer

Destination Coromandel has never had a summer advertising campaign – our core travel resources deliver travel information for these busy months (e.g. www.thecoromandel.com). However summer will be the lifeline for many in our industry and critical to stimulating economic activity in our communities.

This is a great opportunity for us to promote our prime travel period to our key market and showcase The Coromandel good for your soul as a place Where Kiwis Holiday. We will reallocate budget into a summer promotion before we push the increasingly popular - and arguably best time to visit – months of March and April 2021.

As with all campaigns we’ll let you know how to get involved closer to the time.

Please note these plans are fluid and will be adapted as new information becomes available. We will continue to monitor the domestic and global travel environment (specifically trans-Tasman routes) and adapt our our campaigns accordingly. For now, please encourage as many of your industry peers to sign up to our newsletter and website.

You can view a summary of our strategy here.

NZ/Australia Data courtesy of Fresh Info

RTNZ hosted Shane Vuletich of market research company Fresh Info. Shane shared the following sought after information, particularly around the potential for trans-Tasman travel.

Domestic Tourism (Kiwis travelling in NZ)

• 29.5 million overnight trips
• 83.5 million visitor nights
• 2.84 nights per overnight trip
• $23.7 billion spend (incl. day trips)

Outbound Tourism (Kiwis travelling overseas)

• 3.2 million trips
• 58.8 million visitor nights
• $9.3 billion spend (incl. Air travel)

Inbound Tourism

• 3.9 million trips
• 70 million visitor nights
• $17.2 billion spend

Australia – New Zealand

    Australia Outbound

• 11.6 million total outbound trips
• 1.5 million trips to New Zealand
• 10.1 million trips to other parts of the world

    New Zealand Outbound

• 3.2 million outbound trips
• 1.4 million to Australia
• 1.8 million trips to other parts of the world

Please don’t hesitate to continue sharing your thoughts and insights as we move forward together.