Queenstown harnesses the power of visitor experience in Australia winter campaign

Queenstown, New Zealand (3 May, 2017) Destination Queenstown is harnessing the voices of visitors who love Queenstown to encourage Australians to visit Queenstown for a ski holiday.

The innovative campaign is being delivered through user-generated content (UGC) to showcase the epic experiences available throughout the winter season, both on and off the ski fields.

The video and photos being used have been collected from visitors social media channels and curated into action-packed clips that invite Australians to create their own experience in Queenstown this winter.  Users can save images, articles, accommodation and activity options and build their own ski holiday on the queenstownnz.nz website.

The UGC-based campaign highlights Queenstown’s extensive ski offering, our proximity to Australia’s east coast and the exciting range of activities and hospitality, via a series of inspiring video edits that will be pushed out via our social media channels under the chapters SkiTown, AlpineTown, SnowTown and FunTown. The edits invite visitors to Queenstown with the premise ‘Your town, Our town – Queenstown.’
Queenstown visitors shared over 100,000 posts during the 2016 winter season, all telling their own authentic and unique stories about Queenstown in winter.

Destination Queenstown chief executive Graham Budd says there are no better ambassadors for Queenstown’s winter fun than our friends across the Tasman.

“We love to see the fun visitors have when they’re in Queenstown, and to be able to harness this sense of adventure to entice more people to experience their own version of Queenstown’s winter season is very exciting,” he says.

“I would encourage Australians thinking about their 2017 ski holiday to look no further than Queenstown.
“We have four amazing ski areas just waiting to be explored, activities boasting all thrill levels and when the day is done, restaurants and bars that will cater to every appetite for a hearty meal and a fun night out,” he says.

This social media based campaign has been developed based on evidence showing the role social media plays in influencing travel decisions. Research from Google suggests online travel videos are influential in travel planning with 61% of leisure travellers surveyed stating that video content was a deciding factor in choosing a destination to visit (source: Google Travel Survey 2014). Visitors are also more likely to be influenced by their peers, friends and family. Listening to family and friends recommendations has the same importance as ever, but social networks are the new medium through which the information reaches you (source: Facebook Travel Survey 2014).

Queenstown is the Southern Hemisphere’s leading ski resort and has four diverse ski fields within an hour and a half drive, including Coronet Peak, The Remarkables, Cardrona and Treble Cone. The Queenstown ski season begins in June and runs through until approximately early October.