Adriena Daunt, Public Relations Manager, Tourism New Zealand
Adriena Daunt leads PR for Tourism New Zealand across the Americas. During the last year, Adriena’s PR programs generated $40 million equivalent advertising value in editorial coverage, achieving 3.5 billion impressions. This was accomplished through a mix of content pitching, hosted press trips and targeted campaigns such as the ground-breaking 100% Middle-Earth campaign. Adriena’s pioneering PR campaigns not only generated billions of impressions, but they had a significant impact on visitation to New Zealand, particularly from the U.S. market, which saw growth of 15% in holiday visitor arrivals, representing a visitor spend of $45 million.
Adriena leads the International Media Program for Tourism New Zealand in the Americas. In 2015, she secured 46 journalists to travel to New Zealand to produce feature stories in print, online and broadcast media. The goal of the International Media Program is to increase preference for New Zealand as a destination among the target audience of potential travelers, and inspire them to travel by appealing to their emotional motivations and addressing barriers. The program does this by generating extensive feature coverage that communicates 100% Pure New Zealand brand messages. Adriena was able to secure more than 400 feature stories across the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Chile, Argentina and Brazil in 2015. Preference in the U.S. market rose to 63% of active considerers ranking New Zealand first or second out of five preferred destinations to visit, up from 43% in 2013.