Tourism business support
"RBP gives you access to really practical tools that can help your business. They're not going to replace international visitors, but they are going to help us at least stem the tide for a while."
Ecozip Adventures was established in 2012, 35 kilometres from downtown Auckland, out on lovely Waiheke Island. We're bringing adventure tourism to the non-adventurous with a really important side order of conservation and environmental tourism.
Pivoting 180 degrees
"Pre-COVID we saw most of our growth opportunities as international and then suddenly when the borders closed, we realised very quickly we had to change 180 degrees. Everything from brand messaging through to campaigning, everything had to change. Initially we reached out to Tātaki Auckland Unlimited and they put me in touch with an RBP advisor and we were able to scope out what the need in the business was."
Changing our digital marketing focus
"The first thing that we needed was really an audit of our SEO, the search engine optimisation. Because all our focus had been international, we suddenly needed to move all of that to domestic. So they did an audit and helped us change a lot of our phraseology, our terminology, the things that made us visible to domestic customers."
Tracking return on investment
"The great thing about digital is you can track your results, so we know that in the middle of winter last year for every dollar we spent on Google ads we were getting 46 dollars back. From a marketing perspective that's invaluable because you can actually track your spend and then reinforce the successes and move away from the things that are not working so well."
Looking to the future
"Whilst the last 12 months have been tough, I think that New Zealand's kudos internationally has gone up significantly and I think that when the borders do reopen New Zealand is going to be in a really, really good position. We're going to be somewhere that people aspire to come to. There’s going to be a little bit more rough weather to get through before then, but I think the future is very bright."