16/06/2009
Prime Minister, John Key with Tourism Exchange representatives, Vanessa Bottomley and Andrew Robertson, at TRENZ 2009
Prime Minister and Tourism Minister John Key was amongst key tourism industry influencers who visited the Tourism Exchange New Zealand stand at the recent TRENZ show.
“Mr Key stopped and had a chat with the Tourism Exchange staff, which was a nice surprise,” says Chris Hunter, Tourism Exchange CEO.
The four day tourism event was held in Auckland last week at the ASB Showgrounds and attended by around 260 buyers from around the world, including buyers from New Zealand’s key markets of Australia, United Kingdom, USA, China and Japan.
Tourism is an important revenue earner for New Zealand and Tourism Exchange’s new ‘real time’ booking platform is aiming to become a leading driver for booking New Zealand tourism product in a simple cost effective way for suppliers. There is no cost to join the Exchange and suppliers only pay a success fee once the booking is confirmed.
“Booking New Zealand’s diverse range of travel experiences, accommodation and airfares has always been rather fragmented. Tourism Exchange is gathering momentum and is aiming to have the country’s most comprehensive range of tourism product available for booking by the trade,” says Mr Hunter.
“Tourism Exchange’s product listings are very diverse ranging from bed and breakfasts, to attractions, tour operators, large hotel chains and lodges. Tourism Exchange offers a cost effective marketing tool to a lot of unique New Zealand tourism operators that couldn’t otherwise afford to promote themselves on the global market.”
As first time exhibitors at TRENZ the show offered a valuable networking opportunity for the Tourism Exchange’s Regional Development Managers (RDM’s) as well as important face-to-face opportunities with key international buyers.
The new RDM’s have spent the first few months on the job visiting the Regional Tourism Operators throughout the country and TRENZ provided an opportunity to cement these relationships and build new ones with regional operators.
“Most importantly it was an opportunity to talk about the Tourism Exchange concept to international and New Zealand based distributors and outline the benefits of accessing a more comprehensive range of tourism providers at no cost,” says Mr Hunter.
