Mighty Waikato branding gets thumbs up
‘‘We’ve got a strong story to tell and the industry wants to tell it – this gives us the platform to do that and do it well.’’ But the projected financial benefits of the new brand are not known just yet. ‘‘We are currently refreshing our visitor strateg
The new ‘‘Mighty Waikato’’ tourism branding strategy has drawn endorsement from leaders in the national tourism industry.
Hamilton & Waikato Tourism chief executive Jason Dawson received a pat on the back from Tourism New Zealand chief executive Stephen England-Hall and Tourism Bay of Plenty chief executive Kristin Dunne.
The brand took $60,000 and two years to develop, including research, stakeholder consultation and development. It came after the identification of a key weakness in the regional tourism strategy in 2016, in that the Waikato still lacked a single, cohesive, strong consumer brand.
‘‘Early feedback has been overwhelmingly positive,’’ Dawson said.
‘‘Our city and region needed something unique to differentiate our offering from other parts of New Zealand. aspirations and objectives.’’
The Hamilton & Waikato region did reach a significant milestone recently when it smashed its record for annual visitor expenditure.
Dawson said leisure and business tourism is now contributing $1.571 billion into the regional economy annually, just fifth behind Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Queenstown.
‘‘Domestic visitors are our number one asset as they are contributing $1.198 billion into the regional economy, with international now bringing in $373 million.
‘‘These are significant figures and it’s not just tourism which benefits from the growth in visitor expenditure.’’
The latest Monthly Regional Tourism Estimates for the year ending October 2018, show that visitors give out a retail spend of $604m, food and beverage spend of $160m, transport spend of $267 million, and spend $80m on commercial accommodation. Arts and recreation brings $99m into the region from visitors, and other tourism activities generate $214m.