2013-07-01 — /travelprnews.com/ — Tourism Australia and New Zealand’s national carrier Air New Zealand have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which will see more than A$6 million invested in joint marketing activity over a three year period to promote tourism to Australia in key overseas markets.
Under the agreement the two parties will each contribute A$3 million towards co-operative marketing initiatives such as advertising, PR, events and trade engagement, aimed at attracting more international visitors from three of Australia’s largest and most valuable inbound markets – New Zealand, North America and China.
The new MoU was signed by Tourism Australia’s Managing Director Andrew McEvoy and Air New Zealand’s Chief Executive Officer, Christopher Luxon today in Sydney.
Mr McEvoy said that markets covered by the arrangement aligned strongly with Tourism Australia’s balanced portfolio approach to Australia’s largest inbound visitor markets.
“Together, New Zealand, America and China account for more than a third of Australia’s annual international arrivals and, importantly, all three markets are growing. This new deal provides a strong platform from which to further grow inbound tourism from all three of these key inbound markets,” Mr McEvoy said.
Mr Luxon said Air New Zealand is delighted to be partnering with Tourism Australia to promote travel to Australia, which has long been a vital market to the airline. The partnership will be the airline’s largest marketing partnership outside of New Zealand.
“Air New Zealand carries almost half of all New Zealand visitor arrivals into Australia and we have invested heavily in our trans-Tasman services in recent years, including the introduction of our ‘Seats to Suit’ fare structure which allows us to offer a range of competitive fares and service levels within the one aircraft, and the introduction of new routes such as the seasonal Auckland-Sunshine Coast service.
“We are also welcoming the opportunity to engage in joint promotional activity in China and North America. Historically we have seen a large volume of dual destination traffic from these long haul markets with half of all Chinese visitors and over one third of North American visitors to New Zealand visiting Australia on the same trip,” says Mr Luxon.
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Andrew McEvoy, Tourism Australia (left) with Christopher Luxon, Air New Zealand