Tena hoki ra koutou nga kai whakahaere o nga pakihi tapoi, koutou e hoatu te manaakitanga ki nga manuhiri o tatou. Tena koutou,
A stellar month of arrivals in September has seen New Zealand’s shoulder season continue to grow - pushing total annual arrival growth to 8.5 per cent equating to over 238,865 additional visitors.
Figures released this month by Statistics New Zealand show the growth was driven by holiday arrivals, up 12.8 per cent for the year ending September 2015.
The tourism outlook continues to forecasts strong growth, with announcements during the month that American Airlines will recommence daily services into New Zealand from July 2016, and Air New Zealand will start services three times weekly into and out of Vietnam. The focus of this year’s national tourism summit will be on managing the impacts of growth, and in particular we are looking forward to more activity to drive business into the shoulder and low season.
It was pleasing to see our new photo shoot completed this month with the start of the image library refresh well underway, see below.
Until next time,
Paul, Karly and Sarah - Northland Inc
Northland Photoshoot
We have just wound up a seven day photo shoot with David Kirkland, international tourism and travel photographer to update our image library. Many factors come into play when organising a photo shoot; time of year, age demographic and nationality of models to cater for the different markets. This shoot focused on off-peak images to help with Northland's seasonality issues, walking, hiking, cycling, food & wine, golf, Maori culture and many other inventory shots.
Thank you to everyone who contributed to this photo shoot, we are really pleased with the results. We will be displaying these images in our tourism updates each month. Over time, some of these images will be available on Northland's image library. Watch this space...
The importance of telling a story with imagery
Understanding how various markets perceive the destination can help develop better targeted destination promotion strategies*. Images of wide open spaces and scenic beauty are reinforced by both domestic and international market, along with dining experiences and a wide range of activities such as cycling, hiking, scenic flights, boat trips etc. We take all of this into consideration when organising a photo shoot. As David Kirkland (right) says, "In my experience, outstanding photography is 95% planning, 5% pressing the button." *Excerpt from Tourism Informatics - Nalin Sharda
Twin Coast Discovery Revamp
Work has started on the next phase of the Twin Coast Discovery project, Byway development. Workshops were held throughout the region in the first week of November, with long lists of potential Byways developed into a prioritised list with groups who will drive each Byway identified.
By end of the year we will have the first set of Byways ready for later development, and a RFP will be released seeking a contractor(s) for the next phase, Interpretation. See the list of potential Byways.
Bollywood
Northland was lucky enough to host Bollywood sensation Sidharth Malhotra in October. He is very much the man of the hour in India where he has a social media following of more than 4.3 million.
As part of his stay in New Zealand, Sidharth filmed video highlighting New Zealand’s spectacular scenery, adrenalin packed activities and cultural experiences that will be incorporated into Tourism New Zealand’s campaign work in India.
Sidharth Malhotra with Bill from Footprints Waipoua, and at Eagles Nest
Sidharth will also deliver messages about safe driving, encouraging Indian visitors to take care on New Zealand roads. The publicity around this was massive in one of Northland’s developing tourism markets - India. Tourism New Zealand are still collating the media results in market – but initial indication suggest that the exposure New Zealand and more specifically Northland received in dollar value is extremely high.
Final call for TRENZ registrations
TRENZ registrations close Friday 20 November. Early indications suggest that next year’s TRENZ will have the largest Northland representation in many years. The introduction of two new TRENZ support programmes from Northland Inc has helped to encourage more new attendees at the event. The support programmes are available to encourage a larger representation of Northland trade ready tourism product at the event which will help to promote individual business growth and also demonstrate a strong Northland tourism industry to key national and international travel buyers and influencers.
Taking Northland operators to the world
The Northland International Marketing Group is a goer, with 13 operators confirmed. We are expecting a few more operators to sign up before the programme kicks off on 1 January. In the expanded offshore programme Northland Inc provides targeted representation of member operators at more offshore events in key market. These expanded markets include USA, India, SE Asia and more focus on Australia. Northland Inc will also ramp up sales calls to New Zealand based IBO’s too. View IMG concept outline.
China
Unfortunately Karly’s trip to China had to be cancelled due to a bereavement in her family. ATEED represented Northland at the event and Karly has all the contact details of the buyers she was meant to meet with. Karly has followed up with each buyer and provided the Northland Chinese Trade Directory, and will continue to communicate with the Chinese Wholesale database on a regular basis educating them on trade ready product in Northland.
Call for trade information
A Northland Trade Update e-newsletter is going out early next month. If you have any news which you’d like to share with our trade database please let me know. Anything new and photos are always a great hook with trade.
Commercial Accommodation Monitor (CAM)
September CAM data was released 11th November 2015
A healthy rate in guest night growth of 11.6% was recorded for Northland in September, although the growth was very uneven throughout the region. Most growth was concentrated in the Far North and came from domestic activity. Northland’s domestic nights grew a healthy 21.7%, while international nights dropped -7%.
Around the districts, for the month Far North recorded total growth of 19%, Whangarei dropped 1.1% and Kaipara grew by 1.5%.
A check around the country shows this uneven pattern is being reflected nationwide, with some regions showing strong international growth, others showing mostly domestic growth and some flat from both sources. There is no consistent national pattern at present.
The month by month Monitor data gives a snapshot while the year-ended trends give a better indication of activity.
For Year ended 30 September, total Northland guest nights grew 6.1%, and within that total international was up 6.1% and domestic up 4.6%. For the year, international guest nights make up 34% of the total, while domestic guest nights made up 66%.
And around the districts for year ended 30 September, Far North grew 8.3%, Whangarei grew 2.3% and Kaipara grew 4%.
Nights spent in Northland commercial accommodation totalled 1,752,000 for the September 2015 year – Northland ranks the 6th most stayed in region in the country by total volume. Annual nights spent within Northland are split by Far North 63%, Whangarei 30% and Kaipara 7%.
Thank you for the continued support with advertising in the Northland Visitor Guide, and we welcome 37 new advertisers this year, of which 10 were new tourism businesses. This year we have purchased a one-off inclusion for the Northland Visitor Guide to be added to Stocklink’s travel bag which is posted out to travel agents and brokers, so they can see what's new and place an order. This will give the visitor guide added visibility among sellers and distributors of Northland holidays.
New account holders: email orders@jasons.com with your physical address and email address to set up an account (FREE) and place an order.
*Important - Use 'Northland and Bay of Islands Visitor Guide' as a reference when ordering.
Point of contact for advertising
If you are interested in advertising in any of our Northland Tourism Publications for next year, or listing on Northlandnz.com, please review the information rate card and get in touch with Cheryl Jensen
If you are looking for ways to help deliver an outstanding visitor experience to the Chinese market, Qualmark have some fantastic resources available for you to use.
For further assistance have a look at the China Toolkit or sign up to Qualmark's mailing list to receive further advice and tips.
Safety review for adventure tourism operators
As the peak summer season is getting underway, it’s an important time for adventure tourism and outdoor operators to review their safety management systems.
The Tourism Industry Association New Zealand (TIA) is offering a series of free, half-day workshops around the country through November and early December that will focus on safety systems for adventure and outdoor operators. The workshops will be useful to all operators working in the adventure and outdoor sector, not only those covered by the Adventure Activities Regulations.
A travel deal is a piece of content on newzealand.comwhich promotes a special travel offer. Tourism New Zeland want to ensure that deals on newzealand.com are accurate, relevant and enticing. This will help visitors plan their trip, and provide quality leads to operators and travel agents.
The best way to ensure deal quality is to check them before they go live – just as they do for business listings, articles and events. The final step in creating a new deal is now submitting it for approval.
From 18 November, travel deals will be checked and approved by a Tourism New Zealand staff member before going live on their website.
If you have any questions about travel deals on newzealand.com, please email traveldeals@tnz.govt.nz
Northland Inc works with a number of strategically important institutions in Northland across public and private sector with common agenda to strengthen, grow and diversify Northland’s economy.
Key facts:
Northland Region records 1.747m guest nights per year, and by total guest nights ranks 6th in New Zealand (Auckland, Canterbury, Queenstown, Wellington and Rotorua are the only regions which record more nights).
The ratio of international to domestic guest nights peaks in February each year at 49:51, and is lowest in June at 34:66.
Tourism contributes $575m to the Northland Region’s economy and 3.7% of Northland’s GDP. Domestic visitors spend $390m (68%) and international visitors spend $185m (32%). (YE Dec 2014 – Infometrics, Northland Region Economic Profile)
3,900 people are employed in Tourism in Northland. (YE Dec 2014 – Infometrics, Northland Region Economic Profile)
There are an estimated 1,200 tourism–related businesses in Northland.
Northland Inc - Tourism
Northland's Economic Development Agency Level One, 93 Cameron St, Whangarei 0110
Phone 09 438 5110 | email us
Understanding how various markets perceive the destination can help develop better targeted destination promotion strategies*. Images of wide open spaces and scenic beauty are reinforced by both domestic and international market, along with dining experiences and a wide range of activities such as cycling, hiking, scenic flights, boat trips etc. We take all of this into consideration when organising a photo shoot. As David Kirkland (right) says, "In my experience, outstanding photography is 95% planning, 5% pressing the button."
