The purpose of Project 4 is to develop local, place-based plans. This will define market segments that align to Travel to a Thriving Future and aligned promotional and tourism investments.
The project sets out to ensure place-based plans bring the Vision Beyond 2050 goals to life and support aligned promotional activity, by using it as a framework for initiatives, programmes and communications. Optimal ranges of visitation will be determined to define strategies that consider these outputs and desired outcomes for the community from tourism.
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Progress
The initial phase of this project focuses on research to determine capacity and optimal visitation levels that align with the community’s desired outcomes from tourism.
A team from Griffith University has been appointed to undertake this research, which aims to develop a comprehensive model to guide and define variables concerning the social, cultural, environmental, and economic limits of visitor numbers. The project’s goal is to ensure future tourism planning is resilient and robust, fostering a thriving community, environment, and industry.
Queenstown Lakes District Council has managed the procurement process on behalf of DSL. In partnership with the district’s regional tourism organisations, Destination Queenstown and Lake Wānaka Tourism, the Council will be part of the steering group overseeing the project.
While the Optimal Visitation Project is in development the regional tourism organisations have been evolving their marketing and promotional activity to align more cohesively with community values and a regenerative mindset. The RTOs are targeting high contributing visitors, defined as visitors who take the time to become a temporary local getting to know and appreciate our people and place, forging connections and giving back to the Queenstown region.
An evolved consumer marketing model has been developed to align with, and support, the region’s regenerative tourism goal. The model goes beyond the traditional ‘dream | plan | book’ funnel and introduces an additional focus on experience and engagement in-destination and advocacy, representing a virtuous cycle rather than a funnel. This new model is based around the visitor journey in a regenerative visitor economy, helping people discover and understand Queenstown’s brand, positioning and vision, ensuring our activity educates audiences and influences the choices visitors make to deliver positive social, cultural, economic and environmental outcomes via tourism.
The virtuous cycle model focuses on growing awareness of both Queenstown’s brand and regenerative tourism focus, encouraging people to visit, participate in more experiences and buy-in to the region’s vision, foster deeper connections with our people and place, influence them to share their journey to help others discover Queenstown’s vision, give back to the district and become advocates for our region and regenerative tourism.
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Who is involved
QLDC and the RTOs are leading this project with support from Destination Southern Lakes. A team of industry leading experts, including Professors Becken, Higham and Sahin from Griffith University, have been appointed to develop an optimal visitation model for the region. The model, once delivered, will inform the work that aims to define strategies that consider yield, value per visitor, length of stay and total value of the visitor economy to support delivery of the DMP.
How to support
If you a member of a community group and you already have an endorsed place-based plan we would be interested to hear from you, please reach out via the Contact Us page. Alternatively keep an eye on the Community page to find out when the next community forum will be taking place.
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