Typically, tourists have been travelling around FIT, with many in campervans, deciding on where to stay and what to do when they arrive in each town.  Our pre-RWC poll showed a skew towards poor forward bookings – however is this actually what has happened so far?

We’d love to have your vote on the poll below in regard to your September bookings received whether you are an activity or accommodation business. We will conduct a poll again at the end of the RWC in late October to get another overview.

The Rugby World Cup Is Not Showing Widespread Benefits

At this stage the RWC has not increased bookings for most of the travel organizations, if anything they are finding that people are avoiding booking a holiday to New Zealand over Sep/Oct because of the perception of highly priced accommodation and no availability.

Effectively only the RWC Official Travel Agents (OTAs) are benefiting from bookings  and only accommodation in key RWC locations are booked out for specific big match dates. For the rest of the tourism industry the normal travel patterns for spring look to have been displaced by rugby supporters, leaving a potentially patchy couple of months for most tourism operators around NZ and even Air New Zealand has indicated their bookings for this period are not more than usual.

If there’s still time to boost bookings then I suggest hotels and other tourism businesses bring their pricing into more sensible levels to give New Zealand a better image and attract a full range of visitors over this period. We are not yet fully booked!

Forward Bookings Slow

Forward bookings in general are weak. A combination of factors including uncertainty after the Christchurch earthquake, exchange rate fluctuations (weak USD and GBP, high AUD) and ongoing global recession recovery seems to be putting people off booking to this part of the world in any hurry, instead they are opting to leave it as late as possible to decide, giving the industry a poor indication of what the next season will be like.

On a positive note, it does seem that the luxury high end market is reasonably strong however, there are still people out there with large budgets for luxury holidays and so this market is remaining steady.

The Rise of the Cruising Market

The Cruise Ship industry are aggressively targeting the middle travel market with competitive packages that are successfully winning business off the group tour and FIT markets. This changes the dynamics of tourism experiences for visitors to NZ and has considerable effect on accommodation and some tourism activity operators. On the whole it’s not a positive trend economically as they simply don’t see as much of New Zealand and don’t spend as much – only regular cruise ship ports benefit but the benefits don’t run much beyond what people can do in a day visit within walking distance of the ship.

Were you at TRENZ this year? Did you make any other observations to add to this article – your input would be appreciated.

Will money be left on the table with World Cup accommodation next year? There’s a decent storm brewing over room rates in September/October 2011 with many fearing over-inflated room rates will dent New Zealand’s reputation and will make tourists feel as though they have had their wallets emptied at gunpoint.

Some of this talk is fair but most of it is overly black and white. You can’t speak of September/October 2011 as though it is one homogenous set of dates with the same level of supply and demand; there is a huge variety of likely occupancy levels even from one day to the next in the same city.  A game day means town will be full and prices are likely to be high but the following days might see a “normal” or even below average occupancy as fans and teams leave town for the next venue.

Should an accommodation business faced with those dynamics be forced to keep game day rates low just to artificially uphold New Zealand’s reputation, or should they be allowed to let demand determine their rooms rates to a fair degree?

Recent controversy over a Christchurch hotel charging $2,400 for a single room night has put a spotlight on the issue, but instances like this are likely to be few and far between, at least to that extreme.

What is it about the World Cup that gets NZ so worked up over price? Hotel rooms in Auckland on the nights of the recent U2 concert were going at well over $1000 but nobody seemed to mind. Even Wellington on Bon Jovi night last week saw people paying in excess of $500 for a room. Those guests probably didn’t want to pay that much, but hey, town is full and so prices are high. It’s a reality that in most situations people find acceptable.

But not the World Cup. Is it because rugby is so dear to our hearts as a nation? Is it an almost socialist sense of fairness that everyone should have access to low-price accommodation during the World Cup because it is our ‘national game’?

Whatever the case it is clear the industry has a clear division between those who want to make a bit more money per night and keep themselves as full as they can over a long period (ie not just game days) and those who want to ensure they squeeze every last dollar out of every available room.

Just last week we had a Travelbug booking cancelled by the motellier that hadn’t realised the rates he was selling for in September next year. Rather than take the hit, he emailed the UK traveller that he couldn’t sell his room for such a “ridiculously low” rate. But the motellier just down the road was willing to re-accommodate the same guest at an only slightly higher rate than he was selling at this year because he doesn’t see the point in ratcheting rates too high on non-game days.

So how will it wash up next year? No toothpaste on offer, toothpaste at $10 or toothpaste at $50? Only time will tell but if you believe the hype then the world is watching….

Have you noticed that’s it’s less than a year to our Rugby World Cup in New Zealand? What have you done to get involved or make the most if it for your tourism business? If you’re not sure how, see this article or contact your local RTO.

View this video to help you get in the spirit…

Our Regional Tourism Organisations (RTO’s) seem to be getting into gear with workshops, websites and planning for their regions.

With ticket packs now available to apply for, individual tourism operators should be starting their planning on how to benefit from the expected influx of visitors to New Zealand throughout Sep/Oct 2011 (if you are not already a supplier for an Official Travel Agent).

Key Areas to consider now:

• The starting point has to be understanding the legal aspects of what you can and can’t promote in regard to the RWC brand and events.  For full details go the this link to download a useful guide in relation the RWC2011 Major Events Management Act Guidelines.
• Get in touch with your RTO to find out about events and marketing opportunities relevant to your region that your business may benefit from or be involved with.  Some RTO’s have held workshops (Auckland for example) and Northland have developed a website just for the RWC so this is a good resource for businesses to understand the opportunities available.
• Consider your own pricing levels and packaging opportunities for the RWC period.  We’ve been seeing a lot in the media about over the top hotel pricing being applied, so be realistic about what you can charge based on your location to any of the key matches, team training areas and so on.  Generally it’s recommended you apply your high season pricing during this period and for accommodation minimum stay requirements may help to achieve high occupancy rates.  Operators located in close proximity to major games should achieve pricing that the market is prepared to pay for such a high profile event – which is likely to be well beyond high season prices.

Any other tips out there for tourism operators to maximise the opportunity?

RTO’s and local government will now be considering the impacts of visitors arriving in large numbers and planning towards ensuring a positive impression and everything runs smoothly – a number of events and festivals are being created to entertain and encourage visitors to stay longer and spend more, so bring it on!

Tourism numbers held up this summer, although most accommodation providers had razor thin margins on most bookings.  Although activity will begin to slow for most of you, it isn’t all doom and gloom.

You see, most of us could expect the global economy to improve somewhat by Spring. An optimist would perhaps see it as an opportunity to claw back some margin, especially with our dollar being at a 23% discount to Australia’s.

However my point, or should I say theory, is that come Spring, from there on in it’s all good.

Rather than the usual traditional trough in Winter, most of us will be planning, managing, booking, preparing for the (revised upwards) 85,000 tourists expected to descend on our shores for the Rugby World Cup.

Some of these people will arrive early (pre-tournament), most in the middle and fingers crossed, a large portion will kick on and experience our Spring.

We have been advised to treat rates during the tournament as peak periods which is surely music to everyone’s ears.  So as the global economy continues to work its way out of the doldrums and national tourism boards around the world strategise on how to promote their destinations for the uptick in tourism, I do wonder if we have been handed a “get out of jail free” card.

Unlike most other destinations that will have to fight for gradual growth, New Zealand will be hosting one of the biggest parties in the world.

What do you all think?

It was started by comments from Australian Sports Tours general manager Sam Harrison who said “Some of the prices are just ridiculous”,  a hotel in Hamilton planned to charge $700 a night – up from its normal $60 to $100, was one example quoted.  While in New Zealand response has been that the Aussie remarks are inflammatory as a ploy to try and drive prices down, particularly when exorbitant pricing was prevalent during the Sydney Olympics and the Rugby World Cup.  Here are a few of the media articles related to the debate:

Dominion Post: Aussies Take Flight over World Cup Hotel Rates

TV3: Rugby World Cup hotel prices enrage Aussie fans (article and video interview)

Sydney Morning Herald: NZ accuse Aussies of price “beat up”

Surely setting the prices is basic economics – if there is high demand then of course the prices will go up, that’s one of the benefits of hosting such an event, however in New Zealand Bruce Robertson of the Hospitality Association is expecting there to be options available to cater for all budgets. 

“The reality is there will be plenty of rooms available, and there will be packages that will meet most budgets, depending on how far they are willing to travel for a given event.” Time will tell as the official allocations are completed and rooms available for Joe supporter are released for sale.

It would be good to hear direct from some accommodation providers in New Zealand as to their pricing strategy during the world cup period, without giving away too much to competition, is it realistic to expect that there will be options available for a variety of budgets? Is it likely many supporters will need to be accommodated in different cities or towns (or in Australia as suggested by the Aussies!) and just travel to the event on the day?

What advice should be given to accommodation providers for price setting during this period? How this is all managed will indeed be interesting and let’s hope New Zealand tourism providers will be the winners on the day.

Immersing yourself in social media marketing activity surrounding the rugby world cup could be one way to connect to travellers coming to New Zealand for the rugby to give your business or destination exposure to all rugby supporters worldwide.  Having a strategy and a presence on social media for Rugby World Cup content needs to start now.

The official NZ Rugby World Cup has it’s own website, plus social media sites include Facebook, YouTube Channel and Twitter.   Your tourism business or organisation can be active on these Facebook and Twitter sites, monitoring the comments and questions, using these pages to be part of the conversation for the tourism experiences you can offer and attracting relevant traffic to your own website or social media pages.

One example is Rugby World Cup on Twitter (@rugbyworldcup) uses twitter stream hashtags like “#rugby” on twitter their comments.  You can use the same #rugby in Twitter tweets to appear on this stream of updates.  Different updates may include special rugby packages and special offers for Twitter users.

Also see this other blog post Does Your Tourism Website Work on a Mobile Device? and how they can be used for targeting RWC FIT Travellers.