INFOGRAPHICS FOR UNDERSTANDING
ANALYSIS & VISUALISATION OF INBOUND TOURISM TRENDS IN NEW ZEALAND
This research was focused on understanding the major (twenty) inbound tourist markets in New Zealand. It was conducted for a large tourism operator, House of Travel Ltd.
The image above shows an example of the work produced from both primary (interviews) and secondary research. It is an A1 sized infographic and accompanying 30 page data-pack, giving key information required to understand the market in question.
The graphic is printed on a coated synthetic. The idea is to annotate the diagram using whiteboard markers, photograph the annotation, post this to a blog for digital reference amongst the wider stakeholder network, and then re-use the graphic for another session with different stakeholders. Interestingly, Tourism New Zealand has recently adopted a very similar visual infographic approach...
“Mark consistently delivered unique insights and suggestions in response to complex problems. These are having a fundamental impact on the way the Tourism Industry in NZ is viewing the future.”
Infographic showing the holiday visitor characteristics: what they do, where they go, how they get there, where they stay, and critically what they spend, for the German inbound tourist market. This show a clear arrivals pattern and widespread regional travel.
The Chinese market on the other hand shows a very different pattern of travel and visitor characteristics. The median stay is just 4 days, and the visits are very strongly concentrated around Auckland, Rotorua, Christchurch and Queenstown. Revealing this pattern visually took most of the clients by surprise. Despite the fact that they felt they knew the industry well, seeing this visually had a very strong impact. It also raised the question of concentrated travel versus regional travel, and whether a dollar value measure of spend is the best way to measure the economic contribution of tourism, or whether a measure that takes contribution to GDP into account is more appropriate.
The 'data packs' to support the infographics containing all the relevant data tabulated for easy reference and more detailed analysis if required.
Despite the chip on the shoulder that New Zealanders appear to have in regards to Australia, it appears that the Australian inbound tourist market is something that we need to pay very serious attention to.