Auckland agent show boosts first-timers

Published 04/05/2018

ICEF‘s 11th Australia and New Zealand agent fair was held in Auckland, and the firm reported a 9% increase in attendance on the previous year. The event was hailed as a success by organisers hoping to attract new customers and markets, as for 49% of attending agents, the event was their first ANZA workshop.

Nearly 200 education agents from nearly 150 agencies, representing 43 nations headed to the largest city in New Zealand to learn why they should promote the regions of their host, or neighbouring Australia.

“with the US and UK governments making their markets less accessible… agents are looking for other options”

Moira Hagenson, General Manager, International, at Wellington Institute of Technology and Whitireia New Zealand commented that despite the large numbers of attendees and exhibitors, the fair was run in “seamless” fashion.

Commenting on the success of the event ICEF CEO Markus Badde highlighted the year-on-year growth in the market over the past decade, as well as the changing shape of the antipodean market.

“We are also very happy about the 9% increase in the number of agencies attending the event. This is the largest group of agents that we have ever received in New Zealand (33% more than our last event there in 2015),” Badde told The PIE News. 

“On another note,  this year’s ANZA saw a significant increase in the number of educators from the HE/Vocational sector (57% compared to 46% from ANZA 2017 in Cairns), which illustrates that we are also attracting the right educators to the event in order to match the evolving needs of agents,” he added.

“I would like to point out that ICEF has been committed to these two markets for over 10 years now – with our first ANZA Workshop taking place in 2008 in Australia and in 2009 in New Zealand.”

As other destination markets around the world are making it harder for students, Badde continued, New Zealand is poised to take up the slack.

“New Zealand is of course a very attractive and high quality study destination in its own right,  however with the US and UK governments currently making their markets less accessible and less attractive to foreign students, and with Canada being “full” as a Canadian educator said to me the other day, agents are looking for other options,” he said. 

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