Kiwis heed message and head to the Gold Coast
Posted by editor (editor) on Jun 09 2009
2009 >>

A major tourism marketing blitz encouraging Kiwis to visit the Gold Coast is paying off for local tourism operators, Tourism Minister Peter Lawlor said today.

Mr Lawlor said the $600,000 campaign, jointly run by Tourism Queensland and Gold Coast Tourism in partnership with Flight Centre, encouraged New Zealand visitors to the Gold Coast to incorporate more experiences into their visit.

“The campaign enticed visitors to not only enjoy the world-famous Gold Coast beach lifestyle but also the diverse range of hinterland and ’beyond the coast’ visitor experiences,” Mr Lawlor said.

“Preliminary results indicate the aggressive two-week television, print and online blitz, which started on May 17, has been a huge success generating more than 1800 bookings for participating operators and more than 5200 room nights.

“In addition to accommodation bookings the campaign generated more than 1200 bookings for Gold Coast experiences, proving New Zealanders were heeding the message and keen to discover the diverse range of experiences available on the Gold Coast.

“It’s great to see the campaign not only achieved significant accommodation results but also stimulated demand for the add-on experience based options.”

Mr Lawlor said the campaign offered a point of difference for Queensland tourism product in a competitive market environment.

“We wanted cut through in the highly competitive New Zealand market. We offered affordable experiences that position the Gold Coast as very fun, very natural, very active and very indulgent,” he said.

“The campaign featured prominently on New Zealand’s national television channels 1 and 2, newspapers and websites including stuff.co.nz and nzherald.co.nz as well as in 130 Flight Centre outlets across the country.

“New Zealand is the Gold Coast’s largest international market with more than 211,000 Kiwi’s visiting the Gold Coast in 2008.

“Visitors from New Zealand to Queensland spent an average of 13.7 nights, contributed almost $580 million to the economy and supported approximately 2500 Queensland jobs in 2008.”

Gold Coast Tourism CEO Martin Winter said the campaign delivered great returns.

“These are the kinds of results local businesses want to see tourism bodies delivering, travel bookings and room nights,” he said.

“Alone we can only reach so far, but with partners like Tourism Queensland and Flight Centre the Gold Coast has crossed New Zealand with a great value campaign that has converted interest into visitation.”

Mr Lawlor said in response to the current environment, Tourism Queensland was increasingly focusing Gold Coast marketing activity on New Zealand as an international market likely to drive growth for Queensland in the short term.

Last changed: Oct 06 2009 at 3:04 PM