Airline's Olympic sponsorship focuses heavily on US market

By Graeme Kennedy

Friday 23rd June 2000

OPTIMISTIC: Geoff Burns

Air New Zealand expects huge returns from its investment as the only New Zealand sponsor for the Sydney Olympic Games.

The carrier is the lead international member of the official Olympic airline group, giving it direct access to teams, officials, sponsors and their guests travelling to Australia specifically for the big event.

And while 30% of the estimated 150,000 games' visitors are expected to include New Zealand in their Australasian trip either before or after the games, the region's global exposure will boost inbound tourism for several years.

The carrier has set up two special Olympic units to handle the event - one for crewing, flying and logistics and the other to run sales, marketing and media issues.

Air New Zealand market development manager Geoff Burns said the carrier joined the Olympic airline team with two major strategies - to secure official games traffic with a US market focus and to use the event for destination brand-building.

Subsidiary Ansett Australia put the airline team concept together to provide the global reach the games organising committee demanded and match the network strength of rival Qantas in its bid for official airline rights.

"As a domestic carrier, Ansett alone could not meet the committee's needs for as big an international network as possible. They couldn't bid alone so they put the team together with Air New Zealand their first partner," Mr Burns said.

"The team includes Star Alliance members United, Lufthansa and Thai with unaligned carriers Malaysia and South African.

"We brought the international component to their domestic strength but we also wanted to bring New Zealand into the frame and it is disappointing that other New Zealand businesses do not seem to realise that the world's biggest sporting event will be held right next door.

"Perhaps it is because of some cynicism of the International Olympic Committee in the past but each games gets better than the last and Sydney will put on a fantastic show - it's costing $1.5 billion, the facilities are amazing and we wanted to bring New Zealand into it.

"We negotiated a very effective sponsorship deal and while most carriers will benefit from the games, those closest to the event get the most - as an official carrier, we get the rights and can tap straight into target markets."

Once it gained official status, Air New Zealand sales teams began working on official Olympic sponsors in the US including Kodak, Visa, IBM and Bank of America to secure their games' business.

"Some of the US corporates, as sponsors, will be moving hundreds of guests to Sydney, bringing down their top customers and clients to reinforce brands and relationships," Mr Burns said.

"We have been successful in getting their business and we will be bringing the top of the corporate sector, influential people networking and seeing what business they can bring to this part of the world."

Air New Zealand has scheduled 30 extra flights from Los Angeles to Auckland and Sydney during the three weeks of the games, with up to six flights a day during the peak periods.

Air New Zealand has been working with Visa to promote the region in the US, teamed with the Australian Tourist Commission and Tourism New Zealand and had staff with a nine-month Bank of America roadshow focusing on Sydney and the region throughout the US.

"We are carrying the Canadian Olympic team and several from South America in partnership with Varig. We also have a big investment in the New Zealand team and as their No 1 sponsor will fly them in from wherever they are in the world."

Mr Burns said Air New Zealand continued to work closely with thousands of media and was involved with Ansett Australia in the Olympics' first unaccredited media centre at Darling Harbour.

"The centre will host up to 3500 media who produce travel and lifestyle articles. We want to get the destinations into it and the games has never had that facility before.

"We have already done a lot of familiarisations and we will do more after the Olympics with special media fares to New Zealand - we were heavily involved with the America's Cup and found these media do a lot of destination stories globally.

"We got added promotional value worth around $150 million from the cup and from Sydney it will be worth billions of dollars."

Comments from our readers

No comments yet