Newsletter : August 2005
brought to you by New Zealand Tourism Online www.tourism.net.nz
In this August Newsletter:
NZTO Comment
by Garry Bond, General Manager, New Zealand Tourism Online
With the elections just around the corner, I guess we all start to consider who to vote for and why. From my point of view I consider it from two points of view. The first is "what's in it for me personally," and secondly, "how will existing or new policies help my business and tourism in general".
Tourism is a major contributor to the New Zealand economy with annual export earnings of $7.4 billion. This effectively supports one in ten jobs in New Zealand, or 102,700 full-time equivalent jobs. It would be an unwise political party to either ignore it or to have a weak tourism policy and it looks like the ball is starting to roll. Labour has announced that they will do more to push domestic tourism. I really doubt this was because the editorial I wrote last week was on this subject but still, it's good to see this being addressed. There's an overview of the main parties tourism policies further on in this newsletter.
I see that TIANZ has had some feedback (presumably negative) from its members about some of the issues they have had when dealing with privately owned Web sites, portals or directories. New Zealand Tourism Online is 100% behind TIANZ, and advises everyone to check thoroughly before they agree to any form of commission bearing booking or advertising. This issue came up about a year ago, and it looks like the same sort of issues are still around.
Spring is just around the corner and Christmas isn't that far off either. In the meantime the Tourism Conference is only a week or so away so perhaps I'll bump into you there.
Champion Canterbury Awards
New Zealand Tourism Online has reached the finals for the 2005 Champion Canterbury Awards in the champion service category. Although New Zealand Tourism Online provides national and international exposure for tourism in New Zealand, the company is based in Christchurch and is recognised as a leader in enterprise, commerce and industry in Canterbury.
The Champion Canterbury Awards celebrate the excellence and enterprise of business in the Canterbury Region, with the winners announced on September 22nd, 2005.
Political Party Tourism Policies
Here's a few links for you to check out what these political parties have to say on the subject of tourism. These policies may change, so you may need to check back from time to time for the latest information.
| Party Web Site | Party Tourism Policy |
| ACT | |
| Labour | |
| National | |
| New Zealand First | |
| The Green Party |
Mozilla Firefox
by Matt Powell, Avatar Web Promotions
You've probably heard the buzz surrounding the Firefox Web browser that Mozilla has been developing over the last few years. But what exactly is Firefox? And why should you care?
Mozilla Firefox embodies the philosophy that the user should only be forced to keep the really essential features of a Web browser, and that anything else could be installed as 'extensions': small modules of code that add particular functionality to the browser.
So why should you use Firefox? Internet Explorer came with your machine, right? Well, check out some of the features Firefox has that IE still lacks:
- Tabbed browsing allows you to have as many pages as you like open in the same window, reducing desktop clutter
- Pop-up blocking without the use of third-party software, much of which may contain spyware
- Integrated searching with tools like Google, Amazon and eBay
- Download manager for all your large downloads
- Active technical support and development community that actually cares about your problems
- Unmatched support for W3C standards sees the Gecko rendering engine contain far fewer bugs than its Microsoft counterpart, resulting in smooth, error-free pages
And if that's not enough, Mozilla Update's Firefox Extensions page lists nearly 400 extensions, from configuration and development utilities to news readers, search tools and games!
If you're still not convinced, check out Spread Firefox, a site devoted to proselytising the unbelievers.
We welcome any feedback or contributions for our next newsletter - just email our team web@tourism.net.nz
Regards,
The Team
Ph. 0800 14 65 47
https://www.tourism.net.nz
New Zealand Tourism Online Limited
Head Office: 208 Cashel Street, Christchurch
