Chief executive officer John Dean said his corporation is well aware of the challenges ahead in maintaining and improving annual visitor numbers.
The head of the New Zealand office as well as the United States and Australia marketing companies working for CI Tourism will meet with Dean to discuss how to manage marketing this year.
Last year visitor numbers dropped by 3 percent, but this is nowhere near the decrease other Pacific countries experienced.
Dean said the biggest challenge for tourism this year is encouraging more people to visit our shores.
“The global financial crisis and impact on consumer confidence and therefore demand will overtake aviation fuel prices as the tourism industry’s biggest challenge in 2009,” he said.
He said the year will be challenging but is confident that by the second half of 2009 results will be good.
“Forward booking projections are already above last year. We remain confident that we can contain any serious losses. We must continue to be aggressively out in the market place.”
The benefit for tourism and the economy this year will be the major events like the Pacific Mini Games.
Dean said CI Tourism has to maximize in every way the outcomes from these events, especially with publicity. Special flights are already being discussed for the large number of visitors expected to come for the World Youth Netball Championships in August and the mini games.
Dean said with visitors coming from all over the world for the netball event, it is a great opportunity to showcase the islands.
Tourism development in the outer islands is a major priority this year. CI Tourism is looking at producing a composite brochure for the outer islands and will be encouraging more visits from travel agents as well as trade and consumer media visits.
A new approach is to make sure these key people visit Rarotonga, Aitutaki and Atiu as a minimum.
They will mostly come from Australia and the United States where CI Tourism now has dedicated marketing companies working on increasing visitor numbers from there.
“We have a market to build in Australia and a direct Los Angeles flight to fill every week,” Dean said.
Marketing will be changed this year including added emphasis on web marketing which is a tool that is growing bookings already — and not just for the Cooks.
Dean said CI Tourism achieved a lot in 2008 which was a year for rebuilding the corporation and its focus.
CI Tourism welcomed Dean last year as well as new administration and finance manager Anne Lyon and tourism development manager Maryanne Miller.
It established new marketing offices in Australia and contracted a marketing company with offices in Los Angeles and New York to cover the U.S. market.
It also built a new visitor information centre in Aitutaki late last year and upgraded its visitor centre in Rarotonga.
One of CI Tourism’s biggest commitments for 2010 is to showcase the destination at the Shanghai world expo that runs for six months. The event is held every four years and over 70 million people are expected to go through the gates from May to October next year.
