Cultivating the British market

By SIMON HENDERY

After paying £26 each - $152 all up - to get into the Chelsea Flower Show Jennifer and Travis Manning happily queued for an hour to see one of the event's most popular attractions.

A display from New Zealand featuring thermal steam, bird calls and an abundance of native plant life had impressed both the Queen and a panel of Royal Horticultural Society judges.

Now it was the public's turn to assess Tourism New Zealand's 100% Pure New Zealand Ora: Garden of Well-Being.

"It's an excellent advertisement for your country," was Travis Manning's assessment.

His wife added: "It gives a real flavour of New Zealand as a destination. I'd love to go."

The previous night the couple had watched a BBC documentary about the painstaking creation of the 1130-plant garden which cost $300,000 and is intended as a living billboard promoting New Zealand as a holiday destination.

Tourism NZ's strategy of running a major marketing campaign around the garden and the Chelsea show received a major boost this week when the display won a coveted Royal Horticultural Society gold medal, the show's highest honour, awarded to only four exhibitors this year.

Show visitors' response to the win was immediate. By 9.30am on Tuesday, the first public day at the show, the queue to pass the New Zealand exhibition was 1 1/2 hours long.

"The interest is not just in gardens, it's in New Zealand," said Tourism NZ chief executive George Hickton.

Before the show began, the agency had forecast coverage would result in the New Zealand brand reaching 20 million Europeans.

Hickton estimated the gold medal would increase that exposure by 50 per cent, resulting in publicity which would have cost millions of dollars to buy in the form of advertising.

With a global budget of only $55 million, Tourism NZ has had to get smart at pushing New Zealand's message.

The Chelsea campaign is an example of how it has got clever at targeting the affluent, travel-savvy audience it is after, then using the media to push its message.

Britain is an important tourist market for New Zealand - our second-largest behind Australia.

The 246,000 British visitors who arrived in New Zealand over the past year stayed longer and spent more than tourists on average. Tourism NZ's aim is to increase the number to 450,000 by 2010.

Research shows gardening and a desire to experience New Zealand's native plant life were keen interests of many Britons travelling here, so targeting Chelsea, Britain's most prestigious horticultural show, made sense.

As well as contributing two-thirds of the cost of the garden, Tourism NZ has spent another $200,000 on a highly focused marketing campaign around the flower show.

It and Air New Zealand have plastered the walls of the nearby Sloane Square Underground station with advertising posters.

Air NZ's UK regional manager, Simon Bean, said using the tube station was an effective way to cut through the cluttered London advertising environment because about 80 per cent of flower show visitors travelled to Chelsea by the Underground.

Air NZ had also teamed with Tourism NZ, The Daily Telegraph and travel company Taylor Made to produce a Chelsea information pack which is being handed out at Sloane Square and other tube stations while the flower show is on.

Bean said Air NZ's aim through the Chelsea marketing work was similar to Tourism NZ's - to encourage more travel to New Zealand during the less-congested months of March and April.

Frances Blair of travel company Travel 2 said she agreed with Tourism NZ's view that British holiday-makers' interest in travelling to New Zealand would continue to grow over the next few years.

Travel 2, which works with 6000 British travel agents and last year sent 20,000 travellers to New Zealand, had sold as much travel product to New Zealand in the first three months of this year as it did for the entire year last year when the Iraq war and the Sars virus disrupted many people's travel plans.

Blair said for New Zealand's tourism growth to get even stronger, the country needed to change a perception that it was a travel destination suited to older holidaymakers.

New Zealand needed to push the message that it had a unique experience to offer, including its wine scene and its luxury lodges.

Andy Pietrasik, travel editor of the Guardian newspaper, said New Zealand's popularity as a destination would continue to grow because it was viewed as a safe, sophisticated and uniquely natural country.

Guardian readers have voted New Zealand their favourite long-haul travel destination for four out of the past five years - Chile won two years ago.

"People are a lot more adventurous in their travel these days because it's no longer the preserve of the rich - fares have come down," Pietrasik said.

* Simon Hendery travelled to London as a guest of Air New Zealand and Tourism New Zealand.

More Britons please

* Britain, after Australia, is New Zealand's second-largest tourist market.

* Last year 246,000 British visitors came Downunder, staying longer and spending more than tourists on average.

* Tourism NZ wants 450,000 British visitors by 2010 .