NEWS from McManus Tourism Communications, specialist tourism marketing consultants
(For the very latest updates from McManus Tourism Communications - follow simcmanus on Twitter)
Events, a great reason to travel
Events create a unique reason-to-travel and we should know, for the 2nd time we're the communications personnel for New Zealand's leading Sculpture event, headland Sculpture on the Gulf. Taking place on Waiheke Island, in 2009 over 23,000 attended, bringing an influx of tourists to Waiheke Island, tourists who went on to visit local cafes, restaurants and stay at local accommodations, it represents a great tourism boon for the island. Our role for the event spans marketing via public relations, managing the development of a new website and social media.
Australian update
This week simon visited News Ltd HQ in Brisbane. Newsltd publishes several of Australia's leading newspapers, including the Australian, The Daily Telegraph, The Courier Mail, The Herald Sun, and more, across nearly every state in Australia. Each paper includes a weekly Escape section, only slightly tailored to their local audiences. Needless to say this is a powerful outlet! We have had clients published here before through our freelancing friends, now we have the ear of the editor's office and look forward to continuing to grow our coverage in Australia for our clients.
Launching a new festival for Waiheke Island
This week sees the start of inaugural Waiheke Literary Festival, conceived by Geraldine, book lover and serial book club devotee. Working with John Daly-Peoples, respected book reviewer and contracted by Auckland City to manage Waiheke's Artworks Theatre, sales for the festival have already surpassed expectations. The festival will be held over two days, in three locations on the Island and features an exciting range of presentations by personalities and creatives such as: Roger Hall, Lauraine Jacobs and island resident Janet Hunt, full schedule on the website: www.waihekebookfestival.co.nz
Australia's Travel Writer of the Year- wins with Kaikoura featured inspired by our famil.
Check our recent media results page to read the accalimed travel feature story Natural Order in the Sydney Morning Herald, written by Louise Southerden, we invited and coordinated a famil for Louise over 5 days in Kaikoura, with assistance from Air New Zealand and local partners.
Simon appointed Vice President of Travcom, New Zealand's Society of Travel Communicators (May 09)
Simon has been an executive committee member for 3 years and has a key role organising the annual group famil trip, Travcom is a non-profit society which aims to promote and reward excellence in travel communications, particularly in travel writing and photography. Simon was voted into the Vice President position at the recent Travcom AGM.
headland Scupture on the Gulf enjoys significant growth in 09 (Mar 09)
The number of people attending the biannual scupture event grew by 20%, with over 25,000 visitors attending, proving the event is capable of continued success and wider appeal. 2009 saw the event's 4th occurance and McManus Tourism Communications first foray into promotion of a leading art event. Working alongisde event coordinators, we achieved editorial results in excess of NZ$300,000, a significant project milestone of our own.
More AirNZ transtasman flights announced and Jetstar joins the fray (Feb 09)
With the bunfight for Transtasman flights heating up, there's no better time to ensure your direct marketing efforts across the Tasman are reaching the target audience, be it in New Zealand or Australia.
This week's announcements from Air New Zealand and Qantas's subsidary Jetstar increasing competition over this valuable and popular route. Tourism dependant businesses in both Australia and New Zealand need to ensure they're using marketing tactics which get them a slice of the pie, McManus is well equipped to help.
Happy New Year! 2009 off to a flying start for McManus Tourism Communications (Jan 09)
We've started the year with a fantastic result, our most valuable single result ever, and one for which we can claim full responsibility. We inspired a media famil and co-ordinated the complete itinerary for one of our Australian journalists late last year. The result? headland Sculpture on the Gulf was the cover of Australia's Sunday Telegraph travel section, a full colour double page spread followed on the inside front cover. The value of that single result, using Advertising Equivalent Value is over $200,000 Australian dollars, a single result (one of many) which is more than ten times the investment of our client. See this result and more PR on our recent results page.
This single result inspired a flurry of calls from Australians inquiring about the event and planning to visit Waiheke.
Travcom annual famil to inspirational Queenstown - another sucessful adventure (Nov)
For the last five years McManus Tourism Communications have co-ordinated the annual media familiarisation for New Zealand's Society of Travel Communicators (Travcom).
This year Simon worked closely with Destination Queenstown's Naomi Castles to co-ordinate 3 inspirational days of adventure in this world-class destination. The trip provided something for everyone, from luxury boutique hotels to bungy jumping icons and Central Otago wine tastings. A brilliant and seamless sucess for the destination and the operators involved.
A successful visit to Australia - Geraldine returns with more media connections (Sep)
Continuing to build our networks of media in Australia, Geraldine recently visited editors and writers on her recent trip to Australia, some valuable media relationships are blossoming, with increased potential for our clients to reach the important Australian audiences.
SEO 101 - Simon masters the secrets to Search Engine Optimisation
Recently Simon attended the search engine optimisation seminar hosted by New Zealand's gurus of search engine optimisation, Searchmasters. Simon reports " An invaluable day of seminars that covers the basics of Search Engine Optimisation under SEO 101 through to the more in depth elements in SEO 201 and 301. I would highly recommend the course for its up to date and valuable content and Michael's experience comes through in his presentations. It's great to know you really are learning from the masters."
