René de Monchy: Tourism New Zealand boss on the new 'Everyone Must Go' campaign

The country's tourism industry is encouraging Aussies to cross the ditch in a new campaign called 'Everyone Must Go.'

How is the government working with Tourism New Zealand to make the campaign a success? 

Why haven't Australians been travelling here? 

Tourism New Zealand boss René de Monchy answers these questions and more with Mike Hosking. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Everyone must go. There's your new strap line for the
latest attempt to drag the tourism number back to some
form of normality, given it's still in the high eighties
of what it was pre COVID. We're after the Aussies
this time. It's the shoulder season. Short sharp hit tourism
New Zealand. Boss Arena de Manche's back with us. Morning
to you, Good morning, Mike. Doesn't Australia exemplify everything that's
gone wrong with tourism? And I mean it's not hard

(00:21):
to get here. They don't need a visa, the dollar
is good, the distance is fine, they know of us,
and yet they still haven't come back.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Well, Austrailia is about about eighty eight percent recovered, but
actually the holiday arrival numbers in the last six months
are up just over one hundred percent, so it's been
good to see that. But you're right, we want more
Australians and we want to drive a faster recovery and
hence this kind of boost campaign that we announced yesterday
that'll go live in the next couple of days.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
How does this work? Do the government have to cajole
you guys to cooperate or are you out there cooperating
and doing your own thing anyway, and the government actually
don't need to be involved in this.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
No. Look, we work best when we work and partnerships.
In this case, we've worked with airlines across the Ditch
and as well as accommodation providers here in New Zealand
to go. Look, we'll put up the marketing that you
put up some deals into the mix and then you know,
one plus one equals three. So that is generally how
we work and that's how we'd like to work. The

(01:18):
benefit here is that the government has given us a
boost of the five hundred thousand dollars to be able
to just accelerate and drive some urgency and to get
people to book out.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
Without singling anyone out. I did read over the holidays
there are major takeoff and arrival time problems with there
in New Zealand. Are there certain aspects of this that
don't work that well?

Speaker 2 (01:39):
Well, Look, I mean travel times and logistics are always
going to be part of it. But the good thing
with Australia is, you know, I think we've got six
ports of entry now with the new services into Hamilton
also coming on stream later this year, so there's lots
of choice, both from an airline's perspective, Air New Zealand, Quantus,
Jetstar Plus. You know, I think it is six ports

(01:59):
of entry into the country, so lots of different ways
to get in.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
What's your vibe, your gut feel? Though, there's no excuse
think about it Australia. Everyone in Australia knows New Zealand.
The dollar is good, the distance is good, the airlines's
plenty of choice. Why aren't they choosing us? There's got
to be something that's just not quite right.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Well, the good news is at the back of the
back end of last year, actually New Zealand bounced back
to being the number one outbound destination out of Australia.
But you're right. Travel is discretionary and competitive, right, so
you think about your own behavior. You want to go
on holiday first, and then you go which are the
two or three places I want to go to? So
this is about just jolting them, getting a bit of
urgency and going hey, you know, reminding them that we're here,

(02:39):
and ultimately saying, you know, book now home over now,
come in the late summer, come in the autumn.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
I hope it works. China and visas you've got a
view on that or not.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
Well, China is you know, is a big part. It
has been probably the slowest market to recover, certainly of
the major markets. You know, visare is anine entity for
Chinese travelers. They have to get visas for many countries countries,
but what's really important is make sure that New Zealand
is really enticing as a place to visit and so
encouraging to see what's the market's still behind. We've had

(03:10):
a really good if you look at year on year growth,
it's growing an eighty percent and actually the learning New
year from what I'm hearing, which was late January, I
haven't got the exact numbers yet but was pretty positive.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
Hope, so good to catch up, appreciate it. Rene de
monshe's the Tourism New Zealand CEO. For more from the
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