Tourism New Zealand has recently launched 100% Pure New Zealand Stories in Singapore and India, a purely online and digital promotion specifically targeting both markets.
Steven Dixon, regional manager – South and South East Asia of Tourism New Zealand said: “The campaigns focus on localised contents to pull on the emotional strength and connect to the local travellers. In Singapore, for example, Singlish (Singaporean English) is used.”
The localised campaigns are designed based on the travel characteristics and profiles of each market, with the Singapore drive complementing an earlier promotion targeted at the market.
Dixon said: “(Being a mature market to New Zealand), Singaporeans are looking for new and off-the-beaten track destinations. They want to travel like the locals here and they want Instagrammable places.”
On the other hand, the Indian market is characterised by a strong preference for exploring diverse attractions within a holiday. Said Dixon: “The Indian travellers like to do many activities and try new things; they can do (as many as) 20 activities during their 12 to 13 days’ stay. So our focus is to introduce as many activities as possible (to this market).”
A fast-growing market for New Zealand, India has expanded 70 per cent in the last three years and is projected to grow nine per cent annually until 2025.
Another rapidly growing market for New Zealand is Indonesia, which has grown 60 per cent in the last three years and is projected to continue growing eight per cent annually until 2025.
Dixon said: “Indonesia is consistent with double-digit growth year around, not only during the Hari Raya peak season holidays.”
As awareness increases, New Zealand is seeing a growing number of FIT travellers from Indonesia.
“Indonesians stay 10 days, so our focus in Indonesia is to encourage them to come and visit different regions that we have throughout the year. The ways to (encourage) that is working with travel agents and campaign with airlines and a number of other programmes like the 100% Pure NZ Specialist programme,” he said.
Meanwhile, New Zealand’s newest darling market in South-east Asia is the Philippines, thanks to the opening of Philippine Airlines’ (PAL) Manila-Auckland services in 2017.
Dixon said: “(The Philippines) is currently the fastest growing market. Although from a very low base, the holiday market alone in the year ending March grew 20 per cent. A lot of that is due to the new capacity that PAL put in place with thrice-weekly flights in 2017 and in 2018 they upgraded to a bigger aircraft to increase its capacity by 22 per cent.”
Furthermore, the Philippine market travels during New Zealand’s shoulder season of March to October according to Dixon.
As for Malaysia, Tourism New Zealand is focusing on promoting its Muslim-friendly travel offerings as Muslim travellers account for 60 per cent of the market.
“Our focus is to increase the awareness of Malaysian travellers on products we have for them. Equally, we will also educate the New Zealand industry on the requirement of the Muslim travellers. We work closely with the Muslim Federation of New Zealand, creating a guide on website about halal travel guide that we just relaunched with content not only around food but also places of worships. “
