Tourism Australia New Zealand builds up Aussie Specialist Programme

Vito Anzelmi Tourism Australia’s Regional Manager New Zealand and Celeste Bradshaw, Tourism Australia’s New Zealand Marketing Coordinator told The Mole at ATE 2006 that they had spent last 12 months building the Aussie Specialist programme and now had 1,234 NZ Aussie Specialist Agents in two tiers with 537 qualified, having completed 5 modules and moving on to the State training modules.

They also said that in the Premier agent programme they had 57 agents in NZ who are given the opportunity for the consumer to access a bio on the Premier Aussie Specialist Agent and a 1 800 number and email address

They said that they were trying to talk to the Experience Seekers in New Zealand, who are looking for new experiences that give them bragging rights, but only 29% of New Zealanders disperse outside the main gateway as they think they know where they want to go.

We are now getting them to challenge what they know and tip them into the Premier retail network and then hopefully will create a higher yielding client.

We also work through events and developing product around new beach orientated content.

Asia and the USA are our biggest competitors but largely Asia depends on the time of year for the bulk of their business and low cost airlines have also offered new access to destinations.

Aus has a 52% market share which is dominant and then there is a big step to everyone else but of course it really depends on holiday type.We have to remain competitive and present the more compelling side of Australia.

Re the current code share scenario on the Tasman, they said that there is a lot of capacity and we can understand them cutting back to increase profitability, but from a consumer point, inevitably the code share may increase prices, but it may also become more efficient.  The result for the consumer may also be better scheduling with flights leaving more regularly rather than ANZ and QF having flights departing half full a few minutes apart.

Vito said that the role of the agency in NZ is becoming more focussed as everything around them changes with airlines driving it with no commissions except for Emirates, adding that agents know that the market is changing and land has become king, which is where they can generate commission.

Discussing the future, in the next 12 months we will not see the double digit growth we have seen in the past, but hopefully what we will see a move by the retailer and wholesaler to focus on the high yield customer, moving away from the bread and butter point to point and for example, Gullivers have already produced an experience brochure and instead of leading with a state or destination product, they are leading with experiences.

We are concerned that S8’s purchase of Gullivers will further consolidate the wholesale end and restrict non S8 product getting into the Gulliver programmes as they have their own product and will not take on any competitors programmes.

Report by John Alwyn-Jones from ATE 2006