Tourism New Zealand, Jetstar deal to lure more visitors

Posted by travel memo on 11 November 2011 | 0 Comments

Tags: Tourism New Zealand, Jetstar, social media

New Zealand is set to benefit from a $9 million, three-year deal between Tourism New Zealand and Jetstar that will see the pair jointly promoting this country in Australia, Singapore, Japan and across the Asia region. They will each spend $1.5 million per year to a range of joint brand, promotional and tactical campaigns; consumer events; and print, online,
TV and social media activities. Activity will refer travellers to Jetstar.com to book fares and packages. Jetstar will increase
New Zealand destination content on its website to support the partnership.

Jetstar Group CEO Bruce Buchanan said the investment is its biggest-ever promotion of New Zealand and highlights its importance to the low cost carrier. “With our Singapore hub providing connections with 25 Asian destinations, it makes New Zealand an increasingly accessible holiday destination for an emerging middle class in China, the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia. “The launch of Jetstar Japan next year will put New Zealand within reach of millions more holidaymakers from key cities in the world’s third-largest economy,” added Mr Buchanan.

Mr Buchanan singled out Queens-town, describing it as one of the airline’s primary strategic hubs. “We have a few points that are quite important for us – destinations like the Gold Coast, Cairns, Bali are key leisure destinations.
In that mix we also include Queenstown.” He said a primary focus of the partnership was growing the Australian business into NZ and that Queenstown is a “fantastic” product to advertise there - especially as Jetstar builds its air services.

He also said that any move by Queenstown Airport to allow night operations would mean Jetstar would be able to base aircraft there. Tourism New Zealand chief executive Kevin Bowler said the partnership recognised strategic alignment between the two organisations. “The agreement focuses on our core trans- Tasman market, and also the growth market
of Asia, which is a key priority for us. In particular, Jetstar’s growing Singapore and Tokyo hubs provide greater opportunities for travellers across the region to travel to New Zealand on a low cost carrier.” Jetstar already brings more than 400,000 passengers a year to New Zealand. This makes it a very important player given that, for the year ended SEP11, overall international visitor numbers into NZ from Australia stood at 1,122,600; Japan at 74,400 and Singapore at 34,343.