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NZTO Comment

by Garry Bond, General Manager, New Zealand Tourism Guide

It's amazing how unforeseen events can have a dramatic impact on our tourism industry. Take the recent Soccer World Cup for example. This event was massive but I doubt many NZ tourism operators gave it much thought and most probably wouldn't have factored it into their budget in terms of a possible downturn in occupancy rates etc. I believe the time has come where you do have to look at world wide events like this and estimate the likely consequences for your business. These types of events are now big business and are professionally marketed internationally. They are designed to get as many people as possible to the event or viewing it on TV from the comfort of their own homes. Times are changing and the world really is getting smaller.

New Zealand must also make the most of promoting events that are on our own doorstep. The America's Cup is the next cab of the rank for us and we must make a concerted effort not only to promote the event itself but New Zealand as a destination. We must also look for events that are close to home and where we can draw traffic to our shores. The Rugby World Cup (unfortunately being held exclusively in Australia) should give us an excellent opportunity to leverage off Australia's promotion to get visitors downunder. Our company will definitely be promoting the Cup but our angle will be to make NZ an appealing add-on destination before or after the event.

America's Cup promotion

New Zealand Tourism Guide has just launched an America's Cup section with information, history, racing schedules and a profile on Auckland City. This is now being promoted heavily on the Internet and is linked directly to our home page. We have included a limited amount of advertising spots. These are ideal for those offering accommodation, charters, rental cars, tours and attractions in and around Auckland or those who wish to take advantage of the tourist who intends to travel around New Zealand before, during or after the racing.

We have priced these competitively and spots start at just $10 + GST per week. If you are looking at maximum exposure up to and during this highly international event, then please call 0800 14-65-45 or email me today for more information. Those who book now will get the best positions and if you are a current NZTO member then our normal setup fee will be free of chjarge (normally $40 + GST).

The World of Web server statistics

by Mark Rocket at Avatar Web Promotions

Many people get confused by statistics for their Web site. It's little wonder because many companies with a Web site actually use the wrong jargon to describe what traffic they are getting.

A common misnomer is the word "hits". A "hit" on a Web site indicates someone accessing a Web page, a graphic or various other file types that are located on the server (which is where you Web site is residing - in some cases locally and internationally for others). Most Web pages are made up of a number of files.

For example, let's say your home page has 10 pictures. That means your main page will generate 11 hits when ever someone visits your site (10 pictures plus 1 file). The more graphics you have on the page then the more hits you will get.

In addition, graphical navigation buttons and backgrounds etc on every page will increase how many hits you will receive. You can see that this is a very inaccurate way of gauging how well a site is doing.

Unfortunately, many Web sites that sell advertising use hits as a way of telling other companies how popular their site is. Be wary of someone that says "My site got over one million hits last month."

One of the more useful statistics is "visits" or "user sessions" - can be called any of these depending on what software you are getting the statistics from. The person hosting your Web site should have a statistics package and sometimes you may even have you own statistics software. A "visit" or "user session" indicates the actual number of visitors to the site so is well worth taking note of.

Another useful term is "accesses". This indicates how many Web pages have been accessed. For example, let's say last month you had 11,000 visits and 43,000 accesses. That means that visitors are viewing approximately four Web documents each. A word of warning though... some people use "accesses" with the same meaning as "hits".

I recommend you keep a regular eye on your visits and accesses. At least once a month, because it gives you a good feel for what's going on. Other things to check for are:

• Top entry pages - what pages viewers are starting out at
• Top referring sites - see where your traffic is coming from
• Top search keywords - see what your viewers are typing into search engines
• Error codes - an error 404 means you have a page that is not working
• Time - the amount of time someone spends on your site

Lastly, the other thing to realise about Web server statistics is that they are very rarely 100% accurate! This is because of a thing called "caching". Caching is a good thing because it speeds up the Internet by storing repeatedly used Web pages in computer memory. Your computer has a cache, your ISP has a cache and there can be regional caches as well.

Web server statistics simply give you a picture of what is going on and allow you to track trends. They are generally 60% to 80% accurate depending on what server you are on and what statistics package you have.

Footnote: New Zealand Tourism Guide only quotes actual visitors (current visitors are between 12,000 and 15,000 per week with the average time spent per visitor being about 15 minutes.)

NZTG launching new Web sites

In the next week or so, New Zealand Tourism Guide will launch 4 new Web sites. Each site will be geared specifically to attract a particular targeted audience. This will expand and increase our traffic even further. The 4 new sites will be NZ Accommodation, NZ Attractions, NZ Tours and NZ Transport.

We will update you with a special announcement as soon as these are ready to view.

Tourism operator contribution - using emails to track ads

by Nicole Bishop of Kiwistays, www.kiwistays.com

If you are advertising in several places, you will most likely be grappling with the problem of how to track which ads are working best for you.

You have tried asking your customers directly, of course - but (as most of us know from experience!) this is not always a reliable way to track where your customers are coming from when you are advertising in several places over the long term. Even when you remember to ask, your customer often forgets where she found you.

An easier solution - use email to track your advertising.

Simply set up an email address for each advertising source. When the responses come in, note which email address they have been sent to -- then you will know right away which ads are working best for you.

Setting up those extra email addresses is a straightforward process -- and there is certainly no need to pay anything extra for them. Here's how to do it...

Ask your Internet Service Provider

Most ISP's let their customers have more than one email address (at no extra cost).

Suppose, for instance, you advertise regularly in a national holiday accommodation guide and also in your local newspaper, and your ISP is paradise.net.nz (which currently allows up to six email addresses per customer): You could create a separate address for your local newspaper ads (e.g. 'localnews_ads@paradise.net.nz') and one for your accommodation ads ( e.g. 'accommodationguide_ads@paradise.net.nz') using your paradise.net.nz account. These addresses could then be used in your ads.

Ask your ISP how many addresses they'll give you as part of your existing account. If they allow more than one, use the extra ones to track your regular advertising.

Use Hotmail

If your ISP will not let you have more than one email address, you still have another option - use hotmail.

Hotmail (www.hotmail.com) will let you set up as many free email addresses as you please - and they can be set up in a couple of minutes. Set up a "dedicated" hotmail account for each place you advertise.

Get your own Domain Name

Finally, consider setting up email under your own domain name - for instance mattsguesthouse.co.nz . Domain names are not free like the other options suggested above. However, one very handy thing about having email under your own domain name is that it is possible to use an unlimited number of 'aliases' under the domain - john@mattsguesthouse.co.nz , localnewsads@mattsguesthouse.co.nz etc.

So, if you advertise in 20 different places, for instance, you can simply use 20 different email addresses - one for each place. (If you already have your own domain, and don't know whether you can do this, check with your ISP or Web master.)

"Nicole Bishop runs KiwiStays, a Web site which promotes New Zealand holiday accommodation. If you have any questions about this article, you are welcome to contact her at nbishop@kiwistays.com

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