New Zealand keeps the tourism love alive

The love affair between Air New Zealand and Tourism New Zealand continues to blaze, today announcing they will extend their partnership yet again.

Taking the marketing match up through the 2016 financial year, the pair will jointly invest more than $20 million in the project.

The airline signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Tourism New Zealand in 2013 to undertake joint marketing activity promoting travel to New Zealand in international markets.

The successful partnership was extended in 2014 and this further extension will take the total joint investment to more than $60 million over three years.

This announcement will pave the way for more marketing activity, particularly around South America and the US, with Air NZ’s two new direct services to Buenos Aires and Houston set to take off in December this year.

The airline’s chief executive officer Christopher Luxon said that by extending the partnership, both organisations will continue to boom on the tourism front.

“To give just one example of the power of this collaborative approach, Air New Zealand and Tourism New Zealand worked together on a winning bid and hosted China’s top reality TV programme ‘Dad, where are we going?’ to film in New Zealand,” Luxon said.

“As a result destination New Zealand was showcased to an enormous audience of more than 400 million people in China through television and a further 26 million through social media.”

Tourism New Zealand’s chief executive Kevin Bowler said the partnership has also brought stacks more tourists to the Kiwi country.

“Inbound tourism reached a new high in the past financial year with 2.94 million visitor arrivals, up 7 percent on the previous year,” he said.

“We know that working collaboratively extends the reach and effectiveness of our campaigns, and look forward to continuing to collaborate with Air New Zealand to build on the positive results we have achieved to date.

“Under the MoU, Air New Zealand and Tourism New Zealand will each invest more than $10 million over 12 months in cooperative marketing activity in the key markets of China, Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, North America, the United Kingdom and Europe as well as activity in Latin America.

“Campaigns and activity will also focus on encouraging visitation to New Zealand during our spring and autumn months.”

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