NZ coaxes snow bunnies across the ditch

Tourism New Zealand is taking its focus across the ditch this winter, to ski bums back in Oz.

Aussie skiers and winter holidaymakers are the targets of its latest campaign, ‘more magic every day’, which has proved successful three years running.

Tourism NZ is teaming up with Air New Zealand, Flight Centre, Instagram, and ski industry in New Zealand for the snowy campaign, with Tourism NZ’s general manager for Australia Tony Saunders saying there’s magic to be seen both on and off the slopes.

“The majority of Australian’s that visit New Zealand for the ski season are beginners who want the freedom to take to the slopes in the morning and then unwind at a local winery in the afternoon,” Saunders said.

“The new campaign will showcase the variety of activities on offer for travellers to enjoy throughout their winter holiday.”

The campaign aims to pump the number of first timers, increase average ski days and encourage Aussies to venture across the ditch and discover some winter holiday charm.

“This year’s campaign launches earlier than ever before,” Saunders added.

“Through our partnership with Air New Zealand and Flight Centre we will be looking to drive Australians to not just think about a winter holiday in New Zealand, but to book it and make it happen.”

The sale period kicks off today, March 23, and runs until Friday March 27 2015.

And to get you there, Air New Zealand and alliance partner Virgin Australia will operate more than 120,000 seats between Australia and Queenstown over the July to September period.

In a hot new partnership, Tourism New Zealand has jumped on the slopes with Instagram to promote New Zealand in winter through paid imagery and video content.

Instagram’s brand development lead for Australia and NZ, Sophie Blachford, said Instagram will work to inspire travel and engage holidaymakers.

“It is the perfect channel to highlight Tourism New Zealand’s stunning winter shots, especially with the younger ski audiences that the new campaign is seeking to reach,” she said.

“Tourism New Zealand is one of the first travel brands to partner with us for the launch of video on Instagram, which offers the same visual, immersive quality as photo ads on Instagram, but gives us the added ability to demonstrate sound and motion.”

And of course old #NZdronie will be back, flying over the New Zealand’s mountain ranges. The zooming drone allows ski enthusiasts to create personal videos and share the backdrop of the South Island with their pals.

Bringing the goods on newzealand.com’s ski hub will be ski writer Rachael Oakes-Ash, dishing out hot tips, advice, and insider knowledge on NZ ski and winter holidays.

The winter campaign launched back on March 9, and will run until July with TV advertising down the Eastern Seaboard, along with stacks of other avenues such as out-of-home advertising, online advertising and integrated activity across social media platforms.

New Zealand South Island ski and snow holidays have been on the increase for Aussie ski bums since 2005, with over 100,000 of us packing our ski boots and boarding planes to visit our snowy neighbours.

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Email the Travel Weekly team at traveldesk@travelweekly.com.au

Latest comments

Bruce says:
March 23, 2015 at 5:18 pm
“The majority of Australian’s that visit New Zealand for the ski season
are beginners who want the freedom to take to the slopes in the morning
and then unwind at a local winery in the afternoon,” Saunders said.
WHAT THE ?!??! Clearly they have no clue what their customers want, this is probably 1% of people. People want to ski all day maybe and on bad weather days do something else but I’ve never heard of more than the very rare exception (during my 26 years of selling snow holidays) wanting to split up their day like this. In any case the majority of Aussies who ski NZ are not even beginners!
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