Marketing

To market our unique Pacific region to achieve sustainable tourism growth.

SPTO plays a pivotal role in the promotion and marketing of the tourism sector in the Region for the benefit of the people of the Pacific.

We market the Pacific region’s tourism products in three ways:

  1. Digital Marketing Leader – SPTO develops world-class digital marketing skills across its activities and with its National Tourism Offices (NTOs) and industry partners.
  2. Marketing the Region – leveraging these skills to market the Pacific islands in new and innovative ways.
  3. Reporting & Insights – leverage data to continually refine its own marketing activities and support the Pacific Tourism Statistics Strategy (PTSS).

Other key functions include strategic management, advocacy, communications, partnership development, governance, and reporting.

SPTO’s Marketing Programme projects that promote the Pacific region tourism product include:

  • Our Pacific Storytelling Specialist Programme. Focused on upskilling travel advisors, trade, and tour operators in the Pacific region in order to sell the tourism product.
  • Our annual South Pacific Tourism Exchange (SPTE) event, taking place next year in Christchurch, New Zealand
  • SPTO’s Membership program, provides resources, workshops, and tools for the travel trade. Our regional and international membership encompasses National Tourism Organisations (NTOs), hotels, resorts, car rental operators, coach operators, travel agents, tour operators, airlines, cruise and dive operators, and all other businesses associated with travel and tourism in the Pacific. We also provide ongoing support on social media and digital channels in promoting our members, including the promotion of destinations and the referral of consumers to the websites of NTOs in the region.
  • MFAT Project: SPTO has embarked on a digital transformation project funded by the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (NZMFAT). The foundation of the programme is SPTO’s leadership in digital marketing. The organisation will need to drive the digital marketing transformation of the region. This leadership position will result in SPTO’s leading by example through regional digital marketing initiatives. SPTO’s leadership, by capabilities and example, will support an NTO digital transformation programme. When SPTO and NTOs have built these new capabilities, NTO digital marketing initiatives can feed into SPTO’s regional digital marketing efforts, creating a regional digital marketing ecosystem.
  • Digital Content Strategy for the Pacific Islands
  • Digital Stack
  • Benchmarking