TravTalk India Online Magazine
Gregg Wafelbakker, General Manager, Asia, Tourism New Zealand, was in India recently to reconnect with the travel trade and discuss how the bias of the Indian visitor for off-peak travel during the New Zealand summer can be encouraged and translated into real numbers.
Hazel Jain
“There is a strong pent-up demand to travel, and we are seeing that transpire into bookings,” says
Gregg Wafelbakker, General Manager, Asia, Tourism New Zealand. He was recently in India with the objective to reconnect with the Indian travel partners. “We are also discussing with them the uniqueness of the Indian visitor. When we look at the profile of Indian visitors coming into New Zealand post the pandemic, there is a natural bias for off-peak travel. While the New Zealand summer months of December-February is our peak, we see a bias for off-peak from India for the months of April-June and October-November, which is perfect for us. So, a lot of the conversations with the travel trade right now is about encourage this and lift this off-peak demand,” Wafelbakker adds.
Pre-pandemic, New Zealand welcomed 67,000 Indian visitors. What is remarkable about this, says Wafelbakker, is that number had doubled in five years. “This translates to almost a 15 per cent compounding annual growth rate. As we look forward, obviously we start from a low base. We have a target audience in India. we look at an audience of those who have New Zealand as their top five preference country and there is 12.3 million of those. And we know that 12.3 million of 1.4 billion people may not seem a lot but certainly for us that is our audience. And 64 per cent of that audience has New Zealand as the number one preferred destination for a visit,” he says.
Leisure & incentive from India
The jump in number over the five years is simply because of the awareness of New Zealand, their growing preference for the destination, and obviously a large and growing middle class segment in India that has more discretionary income and wants to spend it on travel. “As we look long term, we expect the growth out of India to continue and that makes India a very important market for us. Our focus on the market is predominantly leisure travel but what is also an important growing market here is incentive travel,” Wafelbakker shares.
While there is no direct flight at the moment between the two countries, pre-pandemic, there were multiple ways to get to New Zealand indirectly.
“Not all these routes have started but we expect them to come back by 2023. We would love to see direct flights, but that is not essential to grow this market. From all our international visitors, the Indian visitor actually does the highest number of activities when they are in New Zealand. They stay the longest as well. The average length of stay is 14 days. So, by staying longer they are seeing more parts of New Zealand. And we love that! These make Indian nationals our perfect visitors. We would really like our visitors to get outside of the major hot spots and see some of the other lesser-known destinations, interact with our communities and share some culture. They are also among our highest spenders,” he exclaims.
Trade engagement
While the borders were closed, the tourism board conducted a lot of webinars, virtual road trips, as well as educations series with the trade. Now, when the borders are open, it is working with travel partners like Thomas Cook India, Kulin Kumar Holidays and MMT on conversion campaigns.
The New Zealand tourism industry also re-connected with the world this April on TRENZ Connect 2022 through a series of online events. TRENZ Connect is a digital marketplace launched by TIA (Tourism Industry Aotearoa) last September to connect international market-ready New Zealand tourism operators with the international travel trade.
This year, almost 300 travel and tourism buyers from around the globe, including 24 from India, connected virtually and discussed latest updates from New Zealand. More recently, it organised a two-day Kiwi Link event in Singapore that was attended by 15 buyers from India, who met 65 operators from New Zealand.
‘If you seek’ campaign
With New Zealand borders reopened since August, Tourism New Zealand has launched its new global campaign titled ‘If You Seek’ – a call to all visitors who wish to seek more through extraordinary travel experiences. The campaign captivates viewers via alluring perspectives of the destination’s people and places. The campaign was launched in India through key trade partners such as Thomas Cook, MakeMyTrip and Kulin Kumar Holidays. The campaign’s objective is to convert pent-up demand for New Zealand through these partnerships to boost recovery. “With this, we want to tap into the curiosity of manuhiri [visitors] who love adventure, nature, and true connections with people. Through this campaign, Aotearoa New Zealand welcomes Indian manuhiri [visitors] with open arms and urges to seek the unseen, explore the unexplored and re-imagine travel experience,” explains Wafelbakker.
