General Marketing Tips for Māori Tourism businesses
With most tourism businesses there are a number of marketing activities, applicable across the board, that are low cost or free. They just require a little bit of effort. This article provides information and tips about some of these activities.
Know your customers
To run a successful business you must identify who your customers are, and once you have them, stay in touch and encourage them and their friends to come back.
Develop a simple database of customers and keep in regular but not too frequent contact. E-mail contact is free but you don’t want to become unwanted junk – ensure any contact you make provides new, relevant and interesting information.
A short customer survey will enable you to keep improving the experience your customers have (positive word of mouth is your best marketing tool) and fine tune your marketing activities around ones that work.
Industry Websites
Websites enable you to promote your business both nationally and internationally. There are a number of websites that provide free or affordable listings including:
- Tourism New Zealand: go to www.register.nztb.co.nz and it will take you directly to the page where you can open an account and start inputting details about your business
- www.indigenousnewzealand.co.nz (for Māori businesses).
- www.nzlive.com if you’re promoting an event. Scroll down to the bottom of the home page and click on ‘Suggest an event’.
- www.tki.org.nz if your event or experience is relevant for schools.
- Regional Tourism Organisation (RTO) websites and Māori Regional Tourism Organisation (MRTO) websites.
- Websites that specialise in your target market e.g. fishing websites for fishing experiences, on-line accommodation websites for accommodation businesses, etc.
Guidebooks
Guidebooks are still used heavily by free independent tourists and provide independent recommendations that carry more weight with visitors. You can’t advertise in guide books but you can increase your chances of getting into them by letting them know about your business. Some of the main ones include:
- Let’s Go (http://www.letsgo.co.nz/contact/contact.asp)
Famils
Invite key people, businesses and organisations to experience your product free or at low cost. This enables independent recommendations. Remember that staff change from year to year so you need to do this regularly e.g. once or twice a year.
Consider hosting local accommodation staff, visitor centre staff, other operators, local media and travel media. Link with the local RTO and host them. RTOs also link into Tourism New Zealand’s international media programme and may provide you with access to valuable media coverage in overseas travel media.
Networking
Networking with others in the industry helps you keep up with tourism trends and news, and to build relationships with key people in the tourism industry – an essential part of getting noticed and doing business. Attend tourism functions and workshops, participate in local operator meetings, visit inbound operators, and join sector networks.
Media
There is a raft of free promotional opportunities through the media. For events and community activities, contact the local radio stations and newspapers to get included in their ‘what’s on’ section or community notices. When you have something newsworthy to say (e.g. a new experience/event, something of community/ local interest or national interest, something funny/quirky) write and distribute a press release to key newspapers, radio, TV & magazines. It’s a good idea to set up a database or contact list of key media, so when you do have something to give them you can do it quickly. Tourism News (a Tourism New Zealand publication) and Inside Tourism are two publications that give you access to the New Zealand tourism industry.
Develop & distribute a brochure
For many tourism businesses, brochures are still an effective way of letting potential visitors know about your product.
- Include high quality photos and promote the unique things about your business as well as the strongest selling points e.g. awesome views, the only place you can do it, local guides, authentic Māori experience, etc.
- Keep the number of words as low as possible whilst still describing the key features and benefits of the business.
- Include all contact details but not names because if people leave, your brochure is out of date.
- Consider the size: business envelope size (DLE) is the most common – it’s relatively cheap to post and fits into most brochure racks.
- Think hard before including pricing: if your prices change before you run out of brochures you will need to reprint.
- Put your business name and/or key message is in the top third of the front as this is often the only part visible in a rack of brochures.
- When budgeting for the brochure, include costs for design, printing and getting it distributed into key locations (e.g. visitor centres, accommodation places, other tourism experiences, etc). Get quotes – they can be vastly different.
- When thinking about where to distribute your brochure, don’t forget that many places will display it at no charge. Spend some time going around motels, B&Bs, other accommodation places, as well as relevant retails stores (e.g. if you’re an outdoor adventure operator, outdoors stores are a good option). It’s also a good way to get to know these operators and for them to get to know you and your business.
Develop a website
Websites are a great way to promote your business nationally and internationally without huge costs. They are easy and relatively cheap to update. However, people need to be able to find your website. Some key things to think about when developing a website include:
- As per I, II, & III for the brochure.
- Make sure you have a plan for keeping the website up to date. Either develop it so you can update it yourself, or ensure you know what the costs are to make changes, and allow money to do this as often as necessary e.g. for price changes, updates to facilities, to include visitor comments, etc.
- Avoid pages that require fancy downloads – not everyone has the ability to view these pages and if you’re on a slow connection, they can take a long time to download.
- Make sure your site can be easily found. Get it linked as widely as possible and identify key search words so your website developer can ensure it ranks highly with all the main search engines. Ideally you want your site to come up on the first page of searches using key words for your business.
Other ideas
- Join sector networks and/or associations e.g. homestay association, backpacker associations (e.g. YHA, BBH), tourism industry association, MRTO, etc.
- Work cooperatively with other operators in your region – the more the region is promoted the more visitors there are to share around.
Achieve recognised industry standards e.g. Qualmark, Green Globe, Sustainable Tourism Charters, etc. These are being used more and more as benchmarks of quality and reliability by the tourism trade and in some cases are necessary to participate in events (e.g. with Tourism New Zealand offshore) or undertake contracts with tour wholesalers. - Consider developing an A4 flyer – A4s can often be used in accommodation guest books in each room, on notice boards, etc.
- If you use a vehicle as part of your business get it sign written. If it’s a 4WD, a branded spare wheel cover is a relatively inexpensive option.
- Advertise/get listed in the local regional visitor guide as these get distributed more widely than you will be able to afford with your own brochure.
- Consider advertising in Jason’s and AA Guide publications and websites if you can afford to – these are expensive but get circulated very widely, and are well promoted.
- Consider advertising in specialist media e.g. if you run a horse trekking business look for ‘horsey’ magazines, websites and even club newsletters.
Joanna Doherty September 2008
This information comes from the Te Tapoitanga Māori – Growing Regional Māori Tourism project funded by the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology, New Zealand.
Comments and feedback on this Growing Regional Māori Tourism site are welcomed and should be directed to Helen Fitt
(Email 
).