South and South East Asia fair season off to flying start!

After a two-year hiatus ENZ successfully reintroduced the New Zealand Education Fair in to Malaysia to boost New Zealand’s profile in the market. Attracting almost 800 visitors, the fair was a marked success on the 2013 event which hosted around 100 visitors. With an overwhelming number of prospective students quickly filling the room, the ENZ team managed the influx by spontaneously hosting two “Studying in New Zealand” seminars outside the main function room.

The fair was well supported by New Zealand education institutions and had a strong NZ Inc flavour, being opened by New Zealand’s High Commissioner to Malaysia, Dr John Subritzky.

“Education is a critical part of our ever-growing relationship with Malaysia, and we are proud of our long history of providing education opportunities for Malaysians. It’s great to see more Malaysian students choosing New Zealand as their education destination, especially as this creates life-long connections between our two countries,” said Dr Subritzky.

A prize-giving ceremony for the winners of ENZ’s ‘Think New’ Essay Writing competition and the New Zealand Marketing Strategy competition was also held. As part of his prize, the winner of the marketing strategy competition, UCSI University student Eric Kong, arrived in New Zealand recently to start his four-week internship with the Choose New Zealand alliance. We’ll bring you an update on how Eric and the other competition winners are going in the next issue of E-News.

 Winners of “Think New” Essay Writing and New Zealand Marketing Strategy competitions receiving their certificates and prizes.

AboveAaaaGuests at the New Zealand Alumni Function and Networking Event in Kuala Lumpur.

ENZ hosted an alumni reception the evening before the fair at the Residence of the New Zealand High Commission. Institutions networked with past students and with new and existing education agents.

H.E. Dr. John Subritzky presented a token of appreciation to the alumni who participated in Alumni Voices project.

The alumni reception presented an opportunity to thank two of the Malaysia alumni who took part in ‘Alumni Voices’, a project celebrating 40 years of diplomatic relations between New Zealand and ASEAN, by profiling successful alumni who credit their New Zealand education with having a strong and positive impact on their lives.

India’s events campaign leverages the Fleming brand

Fourteen events in 10 days – ENZ’s India team has been running on pure adrenalin to deliver a series of powerful promotional events in India and Sri Lanka, centred around the flagship fairs held across India last month.

As part of ENZ’s wider SSEA team, ENZ India is the second team in the region to hold its New Zealand Education Fairs for the August – October season. Leveraging the profile of New Zealand Education Brand Ambassador and international cricket legend Stephen Fleming has again been a successful approach in extending New Zealand’s reach into the vast student population in India.

ENZ India Country Manager, Jugnu Roy, worked closely with Stephen Fleming to make the most of his strong following.

“Stephen’s brand is New Zealand’s brand – it’s about integrity, about being open and about connecting across borders. Importantly, Stephen has also made it fundamentally about the value of a New Zealand education because he understands both what we are trying to achieve and also how much his New Zealand education helped his career.”

Using the New Zealand education fairs as the centre piece of New Zealand’s key promotional season in South Asia, the India team also delivered a series of related profile-raising activities including networking events, and round table sessions with close to 40 school principals from prominent secondary and international schools. Stephen also visited leading institutions, including top-ranked universities such as Delhi University and SRM University in Chennai where he addressed more than 2000 students. The immediate result of this visit was the flow of quality SRM students to the Chennai New Zealand Education Fair later that week.

The fairs themselves appealed to a good pool of potential quality students, attracting over 1200 students in total. With more than 25 prominent New Zealand institutions meeting prospective students at the fairs, the New Zealand value proposition was positively championed.

Sri Lanka has been an important market in the South Asia region, and ENZ introduced a ‘university only’ school roadshow for the first time to stimulate the market. The university representatives hadan opportunity to interact with secondary school students of two top international schools of this island country.

Overall, New Zealand’s promotional events in India and Sri Lanka in August reached over 7,000 people.

With New Zealand education fairs and associated events still to come in Thailand, Viet Nam and Indonesia, the SSEA team is continuing to ramp up fair fever across the region. They are always well-supported by Immigration New Zealand and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and, of course, the all-important industry providers

“South Asia and South East Asia is an enormous region and it’s an important region for international education. Our team members from Indonesia right up to India are committed to providing first-class events to raise the profile of New Zealand. Fair season is an exceptionally busy time for us and we’re always focused on providing the best events we can for New Zealand’s institutions.” Said Ziena Jalil, ENZ’s Regional Director SSEA.

ENZ Brand Ambassador, Stephen Fleming welcoming students at the Delhi fair

Students at the Delhi fair

AUT University and others at the Chennai fair

ENZ Brand Ambassador Stephen Fleming having a photo moment with students of Somaiya Institutes in Mumbai

Selfies with potential students at the New Delhi fair