Snow in May never stays. Snow in June still too soon. Snow in July, it will lie. That old adage seems to have been true this year, and the snow lovers are getting their wish this week with some big dumps around the country. So Air New Zealand, Host Sydney and content creators Diaries Downunder have decided to celebrate the welcome arrival of the white stuff with a spot of synchronised snow sliding on Isobel Glacier.
Diaries Downunder, a boutique production company based in Queenstown, specialises in action sports and digital marketing targeted at the youth market. Its core product ‘Diaries Downunder’ is a youth based production sponsored by Air New Zealand and Tourism New Zealand and others that showcases some of the incredible terrain and resorts with the help of local and international characters. And if you haven’t felt the call of the mountains yet, this pre-season winter teaser they put together might stoke the coals.
Tourism New Zealand has also been pushing New Zealand’s winter activities to our Australian friends, with a typically beautiful ad by WhybinTBWA Sydney and popular Aussie morning TV show Sunrise broadcasting live from Queenstown for two days during the 40th American Express Queenstown Winter Festival.
“Over the last decade direct arrivals from Australia to Queenstown during the winter peak months of July to September have grown at a significant rate,” says Tourism New Zealand general manager Australia, Tony Saunders. “The Sunrise broadcast and the annual Winter Festival not only complement our Australian winter ski campaign ‘More magic in every day’, but also our aim of continuing to increase Australian holiday arrivals into New Zealand over winter … The activity is driving significant interest in a winter ski holiday to New Zealand driving over 100,000 visits to the ski hub on newzealand.com since it aired.”
The filming was thanks to Tourism New Zealand’s International Media Programme and it also included live weather crosses from other beautiful winter locations, such as Mt Cook, Tekapo and Wanaka, in the lead up to live action from Queenstown’s lakeside.
Australia is New Zealand’s largest international market for ski and snow sports, with approximately 16 percent of Australians visitors skiing while on holiday to New Zealand. And the government and NZ Ski is hoping to increase that significantly, with John Key announcing a $250,000 contribution to an NZSki Ltd project that aims to generate an extra $15 million of snow holiday expenditure and $181 million of wider economic gains.
NZSki has dedicated $450,000 to the e-commerce project and chief executive Paul Anderson told the Otago Daily Times it aimed to get another 160,000 Australians to book ski holidays in Queenstown and Methven, with the majority of extra business going to Queenstown “because the Australian market share was five times larger in the resort”.
”The Australian market represents about 50 percent at Coronet Peak and the Remarkables, and about 10 percent at Mt Hutt. We think this project will push the Australian share to between 55 percent and 60 percent in Queenstown,” he says. “This year we have already started to see good arrivals through autumn with Australian holiday arrivals up six percent in May compared to May 2013, which is fantastic to see.”
