Winner of Auckland Airport’s marketing award sees results

Media Release I 3 March 2014

Winner of Auckland Airport’s marketing award sees fantastic results

Sachie’s Kitchen, winner of Auckland Airport’s “High Opportunity Target” (HOT) markets marketing competition, has seen impressive results since receiving the award in September last year.

The competition, organised by Auckland Airport, provided a fund of $200,000 worth of marketing support and business development assistance, which was shared between Sachie’s Kitchen and the two runner-ups, Xtreme Destinations and The Rock Adventure Cruise.

The fund was established to help innovative operators develop tourism initiatives, with a focus on emerging Asian “HOT” markets such as China, Indonesia and India.

Glenn Wedlock, Auckland Airport’s general manager aeronautical commercial, says that the airport and Sachie’s Kitchen have been working closely together since the winner was announced last September.

“Our two organisations have collaboratively had a focus on working to build the profile of Sachie’s Kitchen,” says Mr Wedlock. “This work is now seeing some impressive outcomes, especially with the arrival of leading Indonesian travel writer, Marischka Prudence, who alongside leading Indonesia wholesalers will be experiencing a Gourmet Tour of New Zealand hosted by Sachie’s Kitchen.”

Marischka Prudence, who arrived in Auckland today, accompanied by the key Indonesian travel industry executives, will spend the upcoming week travelling the North and South Island, hosted by Sachie’s Kitchen and enjoying culinary experiences that New Zealand has on offer.

The promotion is part of Auckland Airport’s Ambition 2020 strategy and is specifically focussed on driving inbound tourism growth by stimulating Indonesian awareness of independent and semi-independent high end travel options in New Zealand.

“Indonesia represents a major opportunity for New Zealand. Our Ambition 2020 strategy targets 38,900 Indonesian arrivals into New Zealand by 2020 and we have already experienced good growth from the Indonesian market. If we look at the period January 2013 to January 2014 we have seen 13,600 Indonesian arrivals, an impressive ten per cent increase from the same period the year before,” says Mr Wedlock.

“As an influential Indonesian travel blogger and media personality, Marischka has a huge social media fan base. The exposure she can provide in Indonesia for Sachie’s Kitchen, and for New Zealand as a destination, is invaluable,” says Mr Wedlock.

Marischka, who has over 80,000 Facebook fans, will use bilingual (Bahasa Indonesian and English) website, www.luxurynz.co.id, and a Luxury NZ Facebook page to document her time in New Zealand.

As well as Marischka’s tour of New Zealand, Auckland Airport is running a number of other promotions in Indonesia in conjunction with Indonesian tourism wholesaler Golden Rama. These include a special six day gourmet food travel package to New Zealand, competitively priced against similar products to Australia, the Americas and Europe.

Auckland Airport has also spearheaded a major social media campaign to promote New Zealand as a destination. As well as Marischka’s social media activity, the campaign includes posts to Wego about the Sachie’s Kitchen tour by celebrity Indonesian chef Farah Quinn. Farah has over 1.1 million followers on Wego, the Asia Pacific and Middle East’s leading travel metasearch engine.

Ends

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