New Tourism Initiative To Activate And Reward Kiwi Travellers

Auckland-based tourism marketing company Tomahawk is preparing to launch in September an exciting new platform that will activate and reward kiwi travellers.

The initiative, ‘The Great New Zealand Bingo Bonanza’, motivates and incentivises kiwis to discover their local community or other towns, regions and experience activities that they may never have considered previously. Using the well-known game of bingo as its inspiration, inspiring kiwi travellers of every demographic, every age and any special interest in a fun and engaging way.

Tomahawk Marketing Director Gina Paladini said, “Bingo Bonanza was created during Level 4 when we were all attending webinars with other tourism colleagues and wondering how our industry can survive. The initiative is about motivating kiwis to discover their country in a whole new way and rewarding them to do so.

It was born out of the idea that if New Zealanders can lock down together to beat a pandemic, then New Zealanders can play together to discover their country and boost their economy.”

The platform also provides solutions for a number of the tourism industry’s challenges for example it offers the opportunity for engagement with local community, RTOs can showcase smaller owner operator businesses, it can power shoulder season bookings and motivate visitation and spend in the regions.

Bingo Bonanza’s functionality allows players to experience all five stages of the travel process: dream of where to go, provides a great planning tool, easy booking and increases the opportunity for sharing of content and reviews.

Bingo Bonanza collects valuable data which will provide better insights into the travel choices, habits and consumption of New Zealanders. Additionally, GPS data has the potential to help with COVID-19 contact tracing.

In the initial stages, Regional Tourism Organisations (RTOs) all have the opportunity to submit two FOC bingo cards to the platform. For RTOs, Bingo Bonanza offers a fantastic opportunity to draw visitors to their region, showcase stakeholders and activate local spend. Additionally, there are “Community Cards” available to RTOs which they can gift to sports clubs or special interest groups to facilitate with community engagement.

“This is not just a one-off campaign for domestic travellers and there is no ‘end date’. It will be available to international travellers when our borders re-open and we will be adding new activations into schools, new features and increasing the value of our rewards and prizes to encourage loyalty and ensure Bingo Bonanza lives on as part of Kiwi culture.”

Bingo Bonanza has already made a difference to the New Zealand tourism industry. Former members of GO Rentals’ IT development team were employed by Tomahawk and have been working on the technology for over three months. Additionally, two talented industry professionals who lost their jobs due to the COVID-19 pandemic are now heading up the initiative.

How it works:

The Bingo Bonanza platform can be accessed via a website or a mobile app. Bingo Bonanza players can explore a variety of Bingo Cards that meet their specific criteria by filtering options whether it be pet-friendly or Food and Wine, within 10km of my location, one day or multi-day or they can choose an influencer or famous New Zealander’s Bingo card to play. With 25 squares on each bingo card made up of free and paid activities, once five in a row are completed, a reward is released such as a petrol voucher or a free meal.

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