Tohu Whenua News October 2020

Tohu Whenua’s summer campaign

We’ve done a big push with mainstream media outlets to heighten public awareness of Tohu Whenua, including a number of travel features in magazines and newspapers, and on radio.

Another key focus has been to establish working relationships with Tourism New Zealand, regional tourism organisations and others who promote travel, to increase the presence of the Tohu Whenua brand on their digital and print platforms, and to jointly work on special projects such as social media and blogs, hosting media, and getting great marketing stills.

We’re also collaborating with our programme partners, the Department of Conservation Te Papa Atawhai and Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, whose summer campaigns will have strong links with Tohu Whenua. We’re contacting key i-sites and speaking to all Department of Conservation Visitor Centre managers to give them the tools to confidently tell the Tohu Whenua story and supply them with updated regional brochures.

You can do your bit too - tag us on social media posts, add our logo next to yours, and make the most of the fact that you’re one of 24 significant national heritage places to receive Tohu Whenua status.

Building our image library

Some of our iconic landmarks already have professional marketing stills (which is what we’ve been using for our summer campaign), but there are also glaring gaps - particularly for our lesser-known gems. Over the next few months we’ll be plugging some of those gaps by working with photographers across all our regions. We’ve already been in touch with all the relevant Tohu Whenua operators.

Tohu Whenua marketing survey results

The survey highlighted a few key points. Here’s a summary and what we’re doing about them:

We’re not confident telling the Tohu Whenua story because we’re still not quite sure what it actually is?

We’ve put together a partner’s toolkit, which contains a lot of handy things including key messaging, the Tohu Whenua story, FAQs and one-liners. These will hopefully help you become familiar with Tohu Whenua, to share with your staff, and to include in any of your marketing activities.

A staff training kit would be useful

Great feedback - thank you! In your partner’s toolkit you’ll find a slideshow with key messaging to show your staff. We’re happy to walk you through this at one of your regional team meetings. We’ve already had our first booking - with all of the DOC visitor centre managers.

How can we stay connected with Tohu Whenua?

Regional meetings. Each region has a regional team lead, either from HNZPT or DOC and they will be in touch with you soon to organise a catch up.

E-newsletters. We intend to send out quarterly e-newsletters to update you with relevant news at a national level.

Special projects. Caroline and Claudia are also touching base with you personally as we work on special projects.

Tohu Whenua toolkit available

We will share this with you via Google Drive. The toolkit contains:

• Tohu Whenua story and key messaging
• One-liners for guides, websites and social media
• FAQs
• Regional brochure pdfs for your website - coming soon
• Logo and brand guidelines
• Tohu Whenua icon for maps
• Staff training slideshow Key contacts and links

Short and sweet

• Tohu Whenua brochures have been updated for all three regions. Hard copies and PDFs will be available soon.
• We have designed a new Tohu Whenua map icon. Contact us if you or your partners would like a digital copy for your itineraries, journey maps or brochures. To help you and your staff become more confident with telling the Tohu Whenua story, we’ve put together a Tohu Whenua partner’s toolkit. This includes key messages and guidelines of what support we offer.
• Team Tohu Whenua is growing. We have two new part-time contract positions this year. Our social media star, Claudia Babirat is now also managing our marketing and communications and we will soon be hiring a Māori Engagement Advisor to support growth in Māori heritage in Tohu Whenua.
• We are launching our fifth Te Tai Poutini West Coast Tohu Whenua - Waiuta - in December. A former gold mining town, Waiuta is also the subject of a new documentary that was just out in cinemas, ‘Whispers of Gold’.
• Waikato is next on the Tohu Whenua map. Planning and engagement is underway.
• Thanks to PGF investment, Rewa’s Village (part of Kororipo Heritage Park) is currently being upgraded, and Ruapekapeka Pā will be upgraded next year. Both are located in Northland. We are also excited that our iwi partners in Te Tai Poutini will be developing the Pounamu Pathway on the West Coast with support from the PGF.
• Reefton is 150 and kicked off its birthday celebrations by sharing its heritage with 250 visiting campervans over Labour Weekend. Look out for more events over the next year.
• Heritage features as part of Destination Queenstown’s ‘Home of Adventure’ campaign, highlighting the ‘adventurers’ of yesteryear who left us Tohu Whenua such as Kawarau Suspension Bridge and historic Arrowtown.