80,000 Kiwis Await Prize Draw Results

Thursday August 27 2009

80,000 Kiwis Await Prize Draw Results

New Zealanders from across the country will be eagerly awaiting the results of a prize draw to find out if their friends and family are the winners of 15 free flights to New Zealand.

More than 80,000 Kiwis sent invitations to friends and family offshore as part of Tourism New Zealand’s ‘Great Kiwi Invite’ campaign, which closed this morning.

The winners of 15 pairs of Air New Zealand flights to New Zealand will be announced live on TVNZ Breakfast tomorrow (Friday) before 9am.

Tourism New Zealand Chief Executive George Hickton says the response to the campaign has exceeded expectations. “We are delighted to see so many New Zealanders so enthusiastic about promoting their country as a visitor destination.”

Over the past month, Kiwis have been able to log-on to the campaign website www.greatkiwiinvite.co.nz and register to send personalised invitations to their loved ones offshore, inviting them to come down to New Zealand on holiday.

Nearly 88,000 invitations were sent, with just over 38,000 people accepting the invites and going in the draw to win the free flights.

“This campaign is about making the most of the passion New Zealanders have for their country and that good old Kiwi hospitality,” says George Hickton. “Word of mouth is one of our most powerful marketing tools and New Zealanders are our best advocates.”

The campaign was designed to help boost visitor numbers during a challenging year for the New Zealand tourism industry. Visitor arrivals for the year to 31 July 2009 were down 2.8 per cent compared with the same period last year, largely due to the impact of the global economic situation in New Zealand’s major tourism markets.

The ‘visiting friends and family’ sector remains resilient, with more than 760,000 visitors travelling here to see friends and family in the past year, up 3.7 per cent.

"This shows that despite the economic situation, people will still travel to visit their friends and relatives," says George Hickton.

Tourism New Zealand has worked closely with TVNZ to promote the campaign. As well as television advertising over the past month, Breakfast presenter Tamati Coffey broadcast live from popular tourist destinations around the country this week, to raise the profile of the campaign.

He will make the prize draw live on air tomorrow morning from the Auckland Viaduct i-SITE Visitor Centre.

Download hi-res images from the campaign: http://www.tourismnewzealand.com/tourism_info/media-resources/image-download/image-download-centre.cfm

Watch ‘The Great Kiwi Invite’ television commercials:
http://www.tourismnewzealand.com/tourism_info/about-us/100-pure-campaign/100-pure-campaign_home.cfm

ENDS

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