The secret to Wellington’s tourism marketing success

OPINION: In 1995 I was part of a small group employed by the first Tourism Wellington organisation.

It probably doesn’t seem a big deal now, but then people were incredulous that we were marketing the capital city as a tourism destination.

At the time, the waterfront developments had begun but the stadium and Te Papa were only a promise. A tourist had little more to do than a cable car trip and a bus ride up Mount Victoria.

The shops only opened 51⁄2 days a week and bars and cafes were scarce for a city.

Hotels were busy Monday to Thursday with government business but occupancy was low the rest of the week.

The six of us who started promoting tourism were marketing a promise. We would host the tourism trade and international travel journalists on construction sites wearing hardhats and steel capped gumboots, painting a picture of an interactive national museum, a world class stadium and a vibrant city full of bars, cafes and sevenday-a-week trading.

Once someone asked me if I worked for 'Terrorism Wellington'.

We would tell sceptical inbound tourism operators that they should add Wellington to their itineraries even though there was no product they could charge commission on.

Sometimes I found it hard to believe myself, hosting grumpy travel journalists who couldn’t see past the bad weather and lack of things to do.

Even the locals were sceptics. While we all secretly loved our city, it was the Absolutely Positively Campaign that somehow gave us permission to admit it publicly.

Once someone asked me if I worked for ‘‘Terrorism Wellington’’ – it seems a more credible organisation than something asking tourists to visit on a false promise.

We had to try and encourage domestic tourism too, to persuade kiwis they could have a good weekend simply by staying in a nice hotel. It felt a lot like smoke and mirrors.

Last week the original crew of Tourism Wellington got together again. We were spoilt for choice for bars and cafes as we watched the hordes of Lions supporters shop, drink and eat their way around Wellington. They queued outside Te Papa and celebrated a victory and a tie at the Cake Tin.

Wellington is a tourism marketing success story for many reasons. First, it had a vision that it stuck to.

The council invested sensibly with $1 million of public funds and the private sector followed. Wellington believed in itself and took a collective approach so that every sector that could supported tourism: retail, infrastructure, local government, hospitality, venues – even the media.

Remarkably, local politicians even stuck with the plan. Wellingtonians told their story regularly and consistently, building on the positive and marginalising the flaws.

All these years later, Wellington has more stories to tell, and not just tourism ones.

I have had the privilege of being a judge of the Wellington Gold awards – on this Thursday. This is a privilege because I have read numerous stories of Wellington’s creativity applied to business.

We need to apply a similar formula to our Wellington business story – a vision to build the commercial success of Wellington. A clear, simple, consistent message that even the politicians stick to.

If we do for all business what we once did for tourism, then one day I might be in a cafe´ watching investors, international students, entrepreneurs and high-level immigrants enjoying our city.

As I left our reunion it occurred to me that Wellington was still a cold, windy city but somehow we’d managed to bypass that and convince tourists it was worth visiting. Now it’s time to convince them it’s a place worth being educated in, investing in and doing business in. Cas Carter is a marketing and communications specialist.