Tourism 2025 identifies opportunities for growth

Tourism 2025 identifies opportunities for growth

In a fast-changing global marketplace, New Zealand’s $23.4 billion tourism industry must be ready to evolve and adapt if it is to keep growing its value both to individual operators and to our economy, the Tourism Industry Association New Zealand says.

TIA is leading the development of Tourism 2025* - Growing Value Together, a framework to trigger economic growth over the next decade. It is being launched today to around 300 tourism industry leaders at the 2013 TIA Summit in Wellington.

“There is no single solution to growing the value New Zealand gets from tourism. But in developing Tourism 2025 over the last six months we have found a range of areas where there are significant opportunities for the industry to increase its value and its profitability,” TIA Chief Executive Martin Snedden says.

Tourism 2025 identifies five interdependent key themes for the industry to focus on:

• Prioritise insight to drive and track progress – there are significant gaps in industry knowledge. Better cohesive development of insight will provide the industry with a much stronger platform from which to track its own performance and to support key decision-making at all levels with tourism’s private and public sector organisations.

• Grow sustainable air connectivity – New Zealand is an island, geographically isolated. 99% of New Zealand’s visitors arrive by air. Within tourism, it is in everyone’s interests for New Zealand to have stable, profitable international and domestic connectivity, well positioned to both support and stimulate growth in key target markets. On-the-ground operators can play a vital support role to airlines and airports.

• Target for value – high-value opportunities have already been and will continue to be identified. The industry has a great opportunity now to better align and organise itself to realise the full potential of these opportunities. China is going well but value growth can be accelerated. New market opportunities require careful coordinated entry preparations. The reinvigoration of Christchurch, both as a destination and a gateway to the South, needs strong support. International student family visits remain a rich, largely untapped, source of value.

• Drive value through outstanding visitor experience – providing outstanding experience will reap excellent returns through repeat visitors and word-of-mouth advocacy. Strong commitment to identifying and eradicating causes of visitor dissatisfaction and barriers to easy facilitation will receive strong focus within Tourism 2025.

• Focus on productivity for profit – chipping away at seasonality issues, encouraging wider regional dispersal of visitors, and improving business capability will each contribute to better use of existing infrastructure and labour and will encourage new investment and better labour conditions. A changing visitor mix as well as continued planned growth of cruise, events and conferences will each contribute to improved productivity results.

“Tourism 2025 has a firm focus on value growth – growing yield, profitability and return on investment. We are developing a range of initiatives, some for immediate action and some for longer-term implementation, that will allow the industry to seize the opportunities available,” Mr Snedden says.

Speakers and panellists at today’s Summit include tourism industry leaders from the private and public sectors.

Visit www.tianz.org.nz/main/NZ-Tourism-2025-Growth-Framework for more information about Tourism 2025.

Go to www.tianz.org.nz/main/2013_TIA_Summit for details about the 2013 TIA Summit, taking place at Te Papa, Wellington, on 1 October.

The Summit is sponsored by Westpac, Wellington Airport, Lincoln University and Smartpay.

ENDS

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