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March 12, 2025 5 mins

There’s a view that if businesses aren't on social media, they aren't being seen. 

Tataki Auckland Unlimited has spent $103,000 on influencer created-content in recent years, while ChristchurchNZ's dispensed $27,000. 

Neither DunedinNZ nor WellingtonNZ have jumped on the bandwagon, but won't rule out doing so if the right opportunity arose. 

Tourism Industry Aotearoa Chief Executive Rebecca Ingram told Mike Hosking use of influencers is important. 

She says it's important for the sector to operate in this space as it relies on people seeing and feeling what there is to offer, which social media provides. 

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So it turns out if you didn't know, there's a
big money in being a social influencer these days, and
tourism apparently is cashing in. Last year, Tourism in Z
spent one point four million on fifty offshore influences. Auckland
Unlimited dished out more than one hundred thousand dollars christ
uses on board as well. Anyway, how does this all work?
Tourism industry CEO are Rebecca Ingram's with us Rebecca, good
Morning Morning. One of the examples used was IM Speed,

(00:23):
and I suppose in a weird twister branding, I'd never
heard of im Speed, but when Imspeed came here, I
had heard of IM Speed. But what I know about
IM Speed is he's potentially trouble. So is you know
what I mean? So it's just because you get something
out there, does it work.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Well? I think we're about twenty years into having social
media influences, which cush. It still feels like something new,
and people are on average checking their phones one hundred
and forty four times a day and looking at social media.
So if you're not in a marketing extent, if you're
not in social you're not being seen. So it's really

(01:00):
with tourism as an experience. You know something that we
want people to see and know what it looks like
and that we are operating in this space.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
Okay, do you get what do they call it? Metrics?
So you bring Brian here and Brian records a couple
of things, puts it out to us one hundred and
twenty thousand followers. Can you then tell somehow whether somebody
booked and spent and came and experienced.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
You can measure social media activity. So it's part of
what makes it so valuable from a marketing perspective is
that Facebook, TikTok and Instagram, they can give you really
good metrics for how your marketing work has performed, and
then you can see how that influence into people coming

(01:46):
to news events. But what's important to remember is that
social media activity is often about showing the kind of
quality and building debt into our marketing activity. So people
can really see what a holiday and New Zealand looks like.
And when you think about all of that social media
activity that people are doing in any given day, a

(02:06):
lot of it's scrolling through you sitting there in your thumbs.
We can have but influences people that you're following in
these social media channels are people you maybe respect, you
enjoy watching them, You kind of get to know them
over time, maybe you followed them for a few years
and you potentially are also aspiring to be a bit
like them, and you trust their views. And so if

(02:28):
they're having an amazing experience in New Zealand over a
week or so and they're showing you what that looks like,
that is going to stop the scroll and it's to
help you understand or maybe you even start dreaming about
having that safe experience.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
My wife gets approached to do this stuff all the time.
She is what I think you would call a micro blogger.
She doesn't do any of this because she doesn't like it.
But what's you view on a mass person versus a
micro and there they're sort of their reach or the
potential of their reach over just somebody who's got just
followers for follower's sake.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
Well, not every influencer is going to be a great
influencer for New Zealand. So a really strong fitch is critical.
And when I say fitch, what I mean is we're
not Las Vegas, and we're not a sort of fly
and flop destination. We're an active destination. So there's a
running influencer in New Zealand at the moment from the UK.
He's got one point two million followers and he's going

(03:25):
to run the length of New zevant on to Adaroa
trail and he's been supported by her as a news
evant and that is going to provide the most amazing showcase.
But also we're going to get behind them, right, we
want him to be successful and so that's incredibly engaging
and interesting content for us to be able to view

(03:45):
and for all one point two million followers to view.
That's right, And so that's not hundreds of millions of followers,
that's one point two million. But they're going to be
a really great fitch for what it is that we
offer as a holiday. And you hear it. So I
think it's not about whether or not it's micro or macro,
whether it's a huge superstar, or whether it's someone you

(04:08):
like your wife. It's about whether or not the people
who are following them are going to be a great
fit for the holiday that we offering. The evant and
making sure that we show the quality of what we offer.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
Well done, that's well, said Rebecca. I can hear the
passion in your voice. Rebecca Ingram tourism industry. I called
my wife a micro blogger. She' a micro blogger, she's
a micro influencer. I also said, it's I am speed.
It's not I am speed, it's my show speed. I
am speed as his cousin. Isn't it as a cousin
I can't remember as a brother. Well, maybe there's no
im speed at all. Maybe I just made all of
that up for him. I just keep saying to her

(04:41):
when all these officers goes, she doesn't like. She doesn't
like the whole payback commercial side of the equation. So
I say, why didn't you start loving that? Because then
I can get the hell out of here and we
can go. You know what did she say, lion flop
or something, go dive and flop or I felt like
something I'd flop. Who you fly and flop? Oh, you
fly and flop? You know I felt I think I'm
flying and flopping.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
We don't have a lot of swim up swim up
pool bars in New Zealand doing we do not.

Speaker 1 (05:05):
For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, Listen Live to
News Talks. It'd be from six am weekdays, or follow
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