At its meeting yesterday, the Coromandel-Colville Community Board approved a grant of up to $2000 from its Discretionary Fund to help promote Coromandel Town as a destination for domestic tourism.
The grant will ensure a workshop goes ahead to help local businesses to develop the 'story' of Coromandel Town as a visitor destination and work out steps to promote it nationally.
"COVID-19 and New Zealand’s closed borders have ramped up competition for the domestic tourism market," Community board chair Peter Pritchard says.
"In order to compete with areas like Queenstown, Rotorua, Kaikoura and other places, our business community must act with some urgency to market Coromandel Town to the country to bring in visitors whose spending will support our local economy. This workshop will support and enhance the work already planned by Destination Coromandel in the coming months."
The workshop will be facilitated by Tomahawk NZ, an advertising and marketing agency that specialises in travel and tourism with a division focused on digital marketing.
Te Waka (the Waikato Regional Economic Development Agency) has negotiated a reduction in Tomahawk’s usual rate for a workshop to $6000 and Te Waka has offered to pay half the cost. The Coromandel Town business community has raised $1000 so far and at its meeting, the Community Board voted to guarantee a grant for any shortfall remaining of up to $2000.
Destination Coromandel has been running a 'winter wellness' campaign to promote the Coromandel as a winter break destination and a 'where Kiwis holiday' campaign to more generally promote the region.
Destination Coromandel is the tourism marketing organisation for the Coromandel and Hauraki Plains.
The date of the workshop has not been set. There are still spaces available on the workshop, so contact Pamela Grealey on: [email protected] to make sure your business shares in the learnings from the workshop and has a voice in the resulting promotional campaign.
