MEDIA RELEASE : SEPTEMBER 2004

For Immediate Release

General Distribution

3rd September 2004

Tourism Internet Business a Winner with the Public

The first Internet company nominated for a New Zealand Tourism Award was the winner of the Telecom People's Choice Tourism Award for 2004. New Zealand Tourism Online is a Christchurch-based Internet company specialising in New Zealand tourism and in its six years of operation, has grown to become New Zealand's largest directory of online tourism operators. It lists over 10,000 of the country's estimated 15,000 tourism companies.

The New Zealand Tourism Online website--www.tourism.net.nz--connects an average 35,000 visitors a week seeking travel information about New Zealand with a range of accommodation suppliers, visitor attractions, tours and transport options. Among its 28,000 web pages, the site also features general tourist information, maps, links and special features.

"The Telecom People's Choice Tourism Award recognises how important the Internet has become to our country's tourism industry," says New Zealand Tourism Online director Cambel Ferguson.

"We provide the platform for tourism companies to promote themselves--most of them have an Internet presence but many are unsuccessful at getting traffic to their websites. Tourism.net.nz acts as the conduit between the visitor and the operator."

The commercial success of the site is derived from the companies that pay to enhance their individual listing. Over 85% of New Zealand Tourism Online's paying clients renew each year.

Garry Bond, General Manager for New Zealand Tourism Online says it's unusual for a 100% web-driven company to be so successful and attributes this to the site's consistently high search engine ranking. 80% of people find a Web site using search engines and 75% of visitors to www.tourism.net.nz are offshore.

"If you're searching using google.com for 'New Zealand tourism' or 'New Zealand travel', we come up as number two or three after Tourism New Zealand's newzealand.com site. You'll also find us near the top for New Zealand attractions, accommodation or visitor information'."

New Zealand Tourism Online uses specialised techniques developed by another Christchurch company, Avatar Web Promotions to maximise its exposure. "We actually have better overall search engine coverage than newzealand.com and are currently the 22,302nd most visited site in the world accessed via search engines according to Alexa.com." says Garry Bond.

New Zealand Tourism Online has enjoyed spectacular growth since it was established in 1997--285% growth in 2003 secured it 22nd place in the 2003 New Zealand Deloitte Fast 50. The same year, New Zealand Tourism Online ranked 65th in the Asia Pacific region in Deloitte's Technology Fast 500.

"Setting goals and achieving milestones are integral to our business," adds Cambel Ferguson. "And there's still a lot more potential and we have plenty of exciting developments in the pipeline. This award will also allow us to further build on New Zealand's tourism profile."

New Zealand Tourism Online is based in Christchurch. It has eight staff and is co-owned by Cambel Ferguson and Mark Rocket.

Ends