Sunday 28 October 2012

Christchurch Launches Creative Campaign To Win Back Australian Visitors


Christchurch Mayor, Bob Parker is calling on Australia to lend the New Zealand city its Big Things in the first phase of a new campaign being launched today to encourage Aussies to return to Christchurch.

Having seen a significant decline in holidaymakers since the February 2011 earthquake, Christchurch and Canterbury Tourism is launching the two phase campaign to put the city back on the radar for visitors from Australia - Christchurch's largest international visitor market.

"We've got a major issue in Christchurch at the moment, said Parker. "We've got tourists flocking here from all over the world but where are the Australians?"
 
The first phase of the campaign is designed to get Australians talking about Christchurch again in a positive way.
  
Over a series of three video episodes, Parker undertakes a whirlwind tour of Australia visiting cult iconic Big Things including the Big Merino in Goulburn, the Big Chook in Mount Vernon, and Queensland's Big Pineapple, Big Macadamia and Big Cow.
 
Calling on each town's mayors and city officials, Parker asks them to sign a Memorandum of Support to lend Christchurch their Big Thing to help increase the number of Australian tourists visiting the city.

"Australia is a big country, full of people with big hearts and big ideas and big pineapples. They're crazy about big stuff.  So we decided to ask if we could borrow some of these icons and put them around Christchurch to make our Aussie mates feel more at home in our place," suggests the Mayor in the first of the video episodes.
 
The Big Things video episodes documenting the Mayor's visit to Australia will tell the story on popular digital sites. This is being supported by an open letter of appeal in Sydney and Melbourne newspapers today.
 
Capitalising on the expected increase in conversations about Christchurch that will come from the first phase of the campaign, the second phase - the Discovery Stream - will launch in October.  This breakthrough initiative is designed to showcase the actual 'big things' that are happening in Christchurch right now.
 
The Discovery Stream, which will be found at reimagined.christchurchnz.com, is a micro-site that will incorporate real-time content from visitors and residents documenting what they are seeing in the city.

The Stream pulls from Twitter and Instagram to uncover what people are doing and saying, in and around Christchurch at any hour of the day whether that is sitting in one of the new pop up bars, attending the IceFest event or shopping in the Re:start shipping container mall.   People are encouraged to take photos of Christchurch, tag it with #chch, and share it on Twitter and Instagram, in addition to uploading images on Facebook.

A grassroots campaign will be launched simultaneously in the city through tourism operators to encourage visitors to share their images.

To support the campaign Jetstar is offering a special sale for Australians to fly from Sydney to Christchurch for just $119 one way and Melbourne to Christchurch for just $129 one way. The sale will run from September 26th (12:01am) until September 30th (11:59pm), with sale fares valid for travel from October 24th to December 5th 2012.
 
Jetstar Australia and New Zealand chief executive David Hall said the airline is pleased to be part of the Christchurch Reimagined campaign.
 
"We're looking forward to bringing more Australians through the city in the coming months and building on the one million passenger movements Jetstar carried in and out of Christchurch in the last financial year."

For video coverage of Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker's visit please click on the following link:
www.christchurchreimagined.co.nz

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