Air New Zealand and Tourism New Zealand have unveiled a new, one-year NZ $20m (£10.5m) joint marketing partnership.
NEW ZEALAND – The investment represents an increase in planned joint marketing spend of about 80% compared with the previous financial year. Air New Zealand has also unveiled its new aircraft livery which features the iconic official New Zealand Fern Mark.
Air New Zealand and Tourism New Zealand will each invest more than NZ$10m over the next 12 months in co-operative marketing activity in the key markets, which include the UK, as well as Australia, China, Hong Kong, Japan and North America.
Christopher Luxon, Air New Zealand chief executive, said the agreement ‘signals a significant step-change’ in the level of joint marketing activity.
“Air New Zealand has a long-standing relaonship with Tourism New Zealand, having worked closely with the organisation in all of our key markets to promote New Zealand for a number of years,” he said. “We fly more international visitors to New Zealand than any other airline and it is vital that we work together with tourism partners such as Tourism New Zealand in order to convert the opportunities out there.”
Kevin Bowler, Tourism New Zealand chief executive, added: ‘This additional marketing investment will build on the strong visitor arrival growth achieved over the first four months of 2013.’
The airline and tourism body have collaborated on several campaigns, including recent activity in association with The Hobbit trilogy. International holidays to New Zealand rose by 10% during the first four months of 2013 compared to the same period last year.
Tourism New Zealand said a survey indicated that 8.5% of visitors cited The Hobbit as one reason for coming and that 13% took part in some kind of Hobbit-themed tourism, such as visiting a film set.
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