Campaign seeks ‘food curious’ couples
Enjoying a wood fired pizza at Two Mile Bay Sailing Club on the shore of Lake Taupō. Photo: Love Taupō
Regional tourism agencies Destination Great Lake Taupō (Love Taupō) and RotoruaNZ are leading a government-funded campaign to promote a series of new food tourism trails.
Food Trails Aotearoa is one of six initiatives announced this week by Tourism and Hospitality Minister Louise Upston.
It will see the development of up to eight food trails, spanning the North Island and the top of the South Island.
The campaign has received a grant of $794,902 from the Regional Tourism Boost fund which has just allocated a further $5 million dollar investment into promoting regional tourism.
Each of the six marketing campaigns is aimed at attracting more international visitors into regional New Zealand.
Designed to link a gateway city to a self-drive regional journey, the food trails will be designed in a collaboration between New Zealand’s food bible Cuisine Magazine and the region featured.
Destination Great Lake Taupō GM Patrick Dault spearheaded the project proposal.
“In one way, we’re proposing to do what the Michelin Guide couldn’t accomplish, taking our regional food stories to the world with an innovative series of food trails. Our proposition is that food is the reason to travel and regional New Zealand is the experience to book.”
While the trail is based on food, trails can include accommodation, activities, culture, art, wellbeing, landscapes and outdoor experiences where they strengthen the journey.
“The objective, of course, is to disperse international visitors beyond gateway cities and into our productive and delectable regions.”
The trails will cover Northland, the Pacific coastline of Hawkes Bay, the central North Island, Taranaki and Whanganui, and the top of the South Island.
Participating regions include Waikato, Ruapehu, Northland, Nelson Tasman, Marlborough, Bay of Plenty, Kaikoura and Taranaki.
Kelli Brett and the Cuisine team will lead the editorial curation, working with each region to identify the strongest people, places and stories highlighting significant experiences, regional culinary icons and hyper-local discoveries, Dault says.
Targeting travellers from Australia and the United States, the digital campaign is due to go live by the beginning of October running until late January.
“From Australia, we’re appealing to food-curious couples and independent travellers who have 3 to 5 days to follow a trail starting in one of our gateway cities,” Dault says.
From the US, they are looking to a smaller but higher value group of visitors ready to spend up to 10 days on their journey.
The Food Trails Aotearoa campaign will run for four months via channels that include online booking platform Expedia, and partner agencies Air New Zealand and Avis Budget Group.