Angus & Associates Takes Out National Tourism Award

Angus & Associates Takes Out National Tourism Award

Wellington company wins Tourism 2025 Enabler Award for its Visitor Insights Programme

Angus & Associates recognised for its role in helping the industry achieve its earnings goal of $41 billion

Wellington, 14 October: Leading independent marketing, research and strategic planning consultancy, Angus & Associates, has received top honours at the 2015 Tourism Industry Awards, taking out the Tourism 2025 Enabler category, for its development of the Visitor Insights Programme (VIP).

The Tourism 2025 Enabler Award recognises excellence in supporting the tourism industry to achieve its aspirational earnings goal of $41 billion. This category is open to any New Zealand organisation or government agency.

Entering the Awards for the first time, Managing Director Cristine Angus said, “it was superb recognition of the team’s strong expertise in the tourism and leisure industries”.

“Our team consistently strives to help tourism leaders understand markets at a local, regional and national level. With the tourism sector an integral contributor to New Zealand’s GDP, research plays a critical role in building and preserving this important industry.”

It was this ambition in 2011, that saw Angus & Associates identify there were limited marketing insights available to the majority of the tourism industry. With a strong knowledge of the sector and having made considerable investments in innovative technology, the Company took the initiative to develop and run its own visitor monitor – the Visitor Insights Programme (VIP).

The VIP provides visitor insights through a collaboratively-funded programme, offering individual operators and industry bodies the opportunity to access information that would otherwise not be available.

The judges said, “Angus & Associates turned a gap in the market into a business opportunity and successfully sold their product to Regional Tourism Organisations and other tourism operations. The VIP Programme is a high calibre product – extremely informative research and widely used.”

Angus & Associates Research Director, Carolyn Parker, added the VIP had surveyed over 30,000 visitors over the last four years.

“Through using the getsmart mobile app to gather information from across the country, we’ve been able to provide our clients with real time reporting and actionable insights. With over 30 regional segmentation profiles available, organisations now have a way to seamlessly track awareness, understand visitor profiles and gather market insights.”

Established in 2002, Angus and Associates has been providing insights to the tourism sector for over a decade, working with clients such as Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development (ATEED), Destination Rotorua, Christchurch & Canterbury Tourism, Lake Wanaka Tourism, Destination Queenstown, Wellington City Council and Ngai Tahu Tourism.

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About Angus and Associates

Combining extensive technical knowledge and commercial experience Angus & Associates is a premier supplier of marketing, research and strategic planning services. The company is focused on delivering insights for a range of private and public sector clients, particularly within the tourism and leisure sectors.

Angus & Associates’ people are their point of difference. Highly qualified, practiced and passionate, Angus & Associates has full-time and part-time team members based across New Zealand. The company employ more than 30 casual staff working on field assignments around the country and can call upon a larger network of contractors where additional skills are required.

About the Visitor Information Programme

The Visitor Insights Programme (VIP) is Angus & Associates’ quarterly survey revealing how New Zealand’s visitors think, feel and act. The VIP is ideal for anyone wanting to know about domestic and international visitor perceptions or behaviour. Catering for the varying needs of businesses across the industry including Regional Tourism Organisations and individual operators, the VIP is an opt-in programme involving over 600 interviews per month.

Visitor interviews are undertaken in the six main tourism centres of Auckland, Christchurch, Queenstown, Rotorua, Wanaka and Wellington, with the ability to include tailored questions relating to any New Zealand region. Results can be reviewed by visitor profile and information purchased on a question-by-question basis – perfect for gathering feedback on a particular subject. Structured to allow for regional comparison but with the flexibility to cater for individual research needs, the VIP is purpose-designed to help you understand New Zealand’s visitors.

Respondents participate in the VIP via a questionnaire loaded on iPads using the getsmart survey app (www.getsmartglobal.com). At the end of each survey day, data is transmitted electronically to a central server where it is held securely for aggregation and analysis at the end of the quarter.

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