Marketing
The core tool of our marketing approach is the website www.creativetourism.co.nz which is updated bi- monthly in the light of experience.
This provides details of workshops and their tutors.
It also contains valuable endorsements from organisations and people such as Maureen Wheeler, co-founder of Lonely Planet.
These again add credibility.
However, since there are now supposed to be almost as many websites as there are people on the planet, getting the site noticed by our potential market is the real challenge.
We approach this through a variety of means, including:
- encouraging our members and accommodation providers to spread the word to those they know;
- reciprocal links to others whose markets overlap ours. The most referrals at the moment are coming from the Lonely Planet website;
- links from tourist organisations promoting New Zealand and Nelson.
For example see the home page of Latitude Nelson's website:
http://www.nelsonnz.com/ or look at the bottom of 'A Creative View of New
Zealand' on New Zealand's national tourism website:
http://www.purenz.com/index.cfm/purenz_page/E0AFB440-5D94-4B98-910F-
8B36A11391B3.html.
- rack cards in local visitor information offices;
- pursuing journalists; and
- contacting universities and colleges that teach tourism.
Is this enough? No, it is only a very modest start.
The main constraint is money.