The Cook Islands welcomes Jetstar flights

Transcript

The Cook Islands Tourism Corporation is welcoming an announcement Jetstar will start flying to Rarotonga in March, a deal which will mean an extra 25,000 return seats to the country every year.

The director of destination development, Metua Vaiimene, says the Cook Islands has seen a steady increase in tourism over the last five years, and is expecting about 120,000 visitors from across the globe this year.

He says the new Jetstar flights from Australia and New Zealand, its biggest markets, will have a knock-on effect to tourism operators.

But he told Mary Baines growing the industry is not all about increasing visitor numbers.

METUA VAIIMENE: A hundred and twenty thousand visitors is a lot for a small destination like the Cook Islands so its important that whilst we are aiming for growth and aiming to increase our visitor numbers here to the Cook Islands that we must also be looking at yield and we must also be looking at the return that visitors provide. So not always aiming for numbers but aiming for quality too. That is important when you live on a small Pacific Island with limited resources. Where environmental impact can be magnified.

MARY BAINES: So as you say the market is mainly targeted at Australia and New Zealand at the moment. Do you think in the future there will be a push for a more Asian market?

MV: Yes we have started to make some exploratory work in the Asian Market in fact the Chinese visitors are our fastest growing segment. What we are looking at is a high yield customer out of Asia both in terms of what they will leave behind. But also in terms of what they will gain in terms of the experiences. We are finding niche markets in China and other areas in Asia including Hong Kong Singapore Korea and Japan. That fit nicely with the offering that we have here in the Cook Islands. So they are a bit more adventurous they want to try new food. New experiences and they are willing to get off the beaten track a little. These are exactly the kinds of visitors that we would like to target in Asia. Definitely Asia will continue to grow in importance for us. At the moment North America and Australia continue to be our big targets. They are both big markets relatively near to the Cook Islands So there is actually more focus in those markets at the moment. But not forgetting of course our main market which is New Zealand. We must not forget them or take them for granted.

MB: So anything new in a marketing strategy that you can update me on?

MV: Yes we will be rolling out a new brand for the Cook Islands and a new tagline and that is called love a little paradise. We will be rolling out new imagery, new logos, new tags and new branding right through out all of our markets including in New Zealand and we look forward to some increased marketing activity in New Zealand as we continue to promote our new airline partners.