Lake Wānaka isite

Helping NZ's leading tourist information centre forge
deeper connections with their ideal visitors.

The Challenge

The Challenge

isite New Zealand is the country’s official Visitor Information Network, dedicated to providing expert advice and seamless booking services for travellers exploring Aotearoa. With over 50 visitor centres nationwide, isite serves as a trusted resource for international and domestic visitors, offering information and bookings for activities, attractions, accommodation and transport.

As traveller preferences increasingly shift toward online itinerary planning and booking, isite’s nationwide network faces the challenge of evolving to remain relevant and self-sufficient in a digital-first world. Recognising this trend, Wānaka isite sought to diversify its offerings, moving beyond being just a place to talk to local experts. While Lake Wānaka Tourism (LWT) excelled in generating visitor interest through engaging digital content, there was a gap in transitioning these leads into a seamless booking experience. Visitors who wanted to solidify their itineraries or book online encountered friction, creating an opportunity for improvement.

In contrast, the Wānaka iSite, led by knowledgeable locals passionate about their region, provided a high-touch, personalised experience for visitors in person. The challenge was to integrate these strengths into the digital space while maintaining focus on organisational roles and ensuring the iSite's efforts complemented, rather than conflicted with, LWT’s work, and vise versa. The goal was clear: streamline the visitor journey, leverage iSite’s local expertise, and ensure both organisations could play to their strengths in a way that supported the region’s tourism ecosystem.
Project Goals

Project Goals

In response to shifting traveller preferences and the need for a more seamless visitor journey, we worked closely with LWT and Wanaka isite to establish the following goals to lay the foundations for LWT’s role in helping Wānaka iSite delivering high-quality, meaningful tourism experiences via a newly established online channel:

  1. Increase Engagement: Maximise the number of quality leads by creating a seamless, user-friendly funnel that attracts keen visitors to Wānaka and beyond.

  2. Enhance Visitor Experience: Collaborate with LWT to develop a more personalised and comprehensive customer journey, driving high-quality visitor satisfaction and increasing operator bookings.

  3. Facilitate Local Tourism Growth: Strengthen iSite’s role in connecting visitors with local, community-based initiatives and Wānaka businesses, supporting the region’s economic growth.

  4. Promote Experience-Based Travel: Tap into the growing demand for authentic experiences, such as cooking classes, cultural workshops, and local homestays, which allow travellers to connect more deeply with the destination.

  5. Appeal to Core Audiences:
    1. Hands-Off Planners: Cater to travellers seeking a stress-free experience, where planning and booking are handled for them.

    2. High-Value Tourists: Focus on attracting travellers who provide economic, social, and environmental benefits, align with local values, respect cultural heritage, and contribute to sustainable, mutually beneficial experiences.

  6. Support Community Initiatives: Integrate local programmes such as Love Wānaka and Destination Management Plans (DMP) into the iSite visitor journey, fostering meaningful engagement with the community.
Our Solution

Our Solution

A comprehensive approach was designed to leverage key visitor engagement touchpoints on the existing LWT website while creating an intuitive funnel that made it easy for potential visitors to quickly understand the value proposition and engage seamlessly from start to finish. This solution balanced the strengths of both organisations: Wānaka iSite’s exceptional in-person service and LWT’s robust online presence. The first step was to align engagement goals with LWT’s priorities, ensuring consistency across touchpoints. This involved capturing warm leads through streamlined processes and prioritising activities that converted enquiries into bookings while connecting visitors with additional opportunities, such as community initiatives like Love Wānaka.

An automation funnel was then developed to provide a seamless user experience. Active Campaign tools were integrated to automate follow-ups, segment audiences, and manage custom itineraries efficiently. A dedicated iSite form widget was also created, allowing for easy placement across the LWT website to optimise lead capture and improve user experience. 

Once the funnel was operational, clear roles and responsibilities were defined between Wānaka iSite and LWT, particularly for managing visitor data and customer support. An onboarding and training sprint helped refine the process further, with ChatGPT used to simulate realistic enquiries, enabling staff to deliver a cohesive customer journey across online and offline channels. 

Finally, robust reporting systems were implemented, enabling real-time tracking of key metrics to ensure continuous optimisation and long-term success of the strategy.
The Benefits

The Benefits

By aligning the efforts and leveraging the core strengths of both Wānaka iSite and LWT’s marketing funnels, our strategy + implementation approach creates a clear and seamless user journey, reducing confusion and streamlining interactions, ensuring that only serious travellers proceed - an outcome that aligns with iSite’s objectives. The solution also introduces greater efficiency for the iSite team through automation, meaning less time spent managing low-potential enquiries, enabling them to concentrate on higher-value interactions. 

Additionally, the personalised digital offering coupled with opportunities to promote specific opportunities, such as local community initiatives has the potential to significantly enhance the visitor experience. This approach aligns well with the Queenstown Lakes District’s regenerative tourism values by fostering deeper connections between travellers and the local community alike.


Finally, having established actionable metrics will enable continuous improvement of the strategy over time. Systems to track key data points provides the foundation required for ongoing refinement and optimisation. We’re proud to see our collaboration with Wānaka isite and LWT come to life, providing a clear framework for improving both visitor experiences and operational efficiency, helping drive better tourism outcomes for the long term.
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