Positively Wellington Tourism’s (PWT) Wondrous Wellington Advent Calendar has been named a finalist in this year’s TVNZ-NZ Marketing Awards.

The digital Christmas campaign was short listed in the Lifestyle/Travel/Leisure category which recognises leadership and success in marketing strategy, process and discipline.

PWT Chief Executive David Perks says the advent calendar was “a fun and creative way of promoting downtown Wellington businesses whilst keeping the coolest little capital in the spotlight.”

The popular calendar saw a record number of visitors to the site in 2011 not only from the capital city, but also from other regions of New Zealand and across the globe.

“Overall, we had 154,594 visits from 61,572 unique visitors. Whilst the majority of visits were from Wellington, or other New Zealand destinations, there were 9,700 visits from 104 countries around the world.

“That's a whole lot of people who have engaged with our city and who now know more about Wellington as a destination.” 

Mr Perks says the high visitation associated with the 2011 calendar was due to a few simple digital integrations that encouraged certain user behaviour.

“This lead to increased social media sharing and online chatter about the calendar - driving more visitors to the site.”

He says a lot of work and energy goes into ensuring downtown Wellington is seen as an exciting place to be and that Wellingtonians, New Zealanders and international guests are constantly presented with reasons to visit and are inspired to return again and again.

“Feedback received from businesses involved in the campaign, and users of the site, was overwhelmingly positive with the calendar creating a lot of buzz and excitement in the lead up to the festive season.”

Category winners will be announced at the 2012 TVNZ-NZ Marketing Awards on 30 August.