Newsletter : January 2006
brought to you by New Zealand Tourism Online www.tourism.net.nz
In this January Newsletter:
NZTO Comment
by Garry Bond, General Manager, New Zealand Tourism Online
Welcome to our new look newsletter. I hope you have enjoyed past newsletters and that they have been informative, thought provoking and useful.
As 2006 starts, it seems that fraudsters are getting even more cunning when it comes to trying to fleece you out of your hard earned dollar. Just recently the Tourism Industry Association (TIANZ) issued a warning about an accommodation scam involving hotel, motel and B&B operators in the Bay of Islands area. This is likely to spread further around New Zealand.
The most common scam is currently the bogus refund, where the operator receives an accommodation booking using a fraudulent card. The booking is then cancelled within about three weeks and the fraudster asks the operator to send the refunds via Western Union or similar. It’s an unfortunate part of life now and the Internet allows these activities to go largely unchecked. The best way to counter this type of fraud is to keep vigilant and if you have an uneasy feeling, find out more about the people making the booking.
On a more positive note, the World Buskers Festival has just finished in Christchurch. I attended several busker sessions over the last two weeks and thoroughly enjoyed them, as did the mixture of other locals and overseas travellers. This particular festival has been going for 13 years now and from just a dozen acts and 8,000 people looking on, it now boasts 35 acts and plays to more than 200,000 people.
It just goes to show you that these types of events can evolve into major tourism draw cards provided they get the right exposure and deliver on their promises. It’s great for the regions they are held in and for New Zealand tourism in general.
Tourism In Action
New Zealand Tourism Online has been selected to be a case study as part of the Tourism Industry Association's new guide to getting started in tourism. The guide is aimed at people thinking about setting up a business, so is very much focused on helping them turn a good idea into a successful business. In addition a new CD will also be available that will offer a more advanced range of tools to assist tourism businesses with detailed business planning.
The guide and CD ROM are due to be released in March this year, so we’ll keep you informed about its availability.
Secure Credit Card Centre
If you weren’t already aware, New Zealand Tourism Online has developed a Secure Credit Card Centre which is free for you to use if you have a paid listing on the www.tourism.net.nz Web site.
One major benefit is that it allows your potential clients to provide their credit card details to you in a secure and protected environment. This is ideal if you don't currently have any way to obtain credit card details securely (many people won't fax or send these details by ordinary email). To date over 700 people have added credit card details to their enquiries in the last three to four weeks.
“Just a word of thanks for the secure online booking form option. It works a treat and makes my online credit card bookings so much simpler and worry-free for my clients. This is a huge advantage and saves me hundreds of dollars to have an imbedded credit card facility on the Web site.”
Phil Parker, Fine Wine Tours
And best of all it's easy to use! You simply provide the personalised link we have specifically designed for your business. Copy this into your email when replying to potential clients and/or add it to your Web site. You can get your personalised link by logging in to the secure credit card facility.
If you haven't used the new facility yet or want to get your personalised link do one of the following:
- Login (if you already have your username and password)
https://www.tourism.net.nz/client - Reset your password (if an account has already been created/registered but you no longer have your details)
https://www.tourism.net.nz/client/reset-password
Please note that when using the registration and password pages the 'Company' name must be your listing title on our site and the 'Email' must be the same as your enquiry email address as setup with New Zealand Tourism Online.
Note: Do not be concerned if you have a problem registering as you will not miss any credit card details. If you choose not to register, an account will be automatically created for you should someone send you a credit card based enquiry from our site.
Remember that if you have been sent an enquiry with credit card details, it is stored in the secure credit card facility and will be automatically deleted after 30 days. It's best if you log in and delete them so you are in control of this function.
P.S. In order to help strengthen our mutual tourism network community we do ask that you add a link from your site to ours if you don't already have one. Click here to get your member shield, a reciprocal link or our new map link.
NZTO Updates
New Zealand Tourism Online has won a Hitwise Online Performance Award for its Web site www.tourism.net.nz and the number 1 Web site for traffic to its site in the 'Travel - Destinations and Accommodation' category for 2005.
Hitwise measures Internet traffic and compares a Web site against its competitors within the same category. An awards evening will take place in Auckland on February 2nd 2006.
If you'd like more information about how you can expand your online marketing, or you would like to be listed on the www.tourism.net.nz Web site, then please email us or contact one of our tourism consultants directly.
- Desley Curtis — Free Phone 0800 14 65 44
- Paul Crichton — Free Phone 0800 14 65 47
- Grant Easton — Free Phone 0800 14 65 56
Targeting Hot Prospects
by Steph Beecher, Avatar Web Promotions
If you want to attract hot prospects to your Web site, in terms of optimisation you first need to identify the most useful keyword phrases for your (niche) market for coverage on your site. Rather than taking on the 'big guns' in your industry already ranking for highly competitive keyword phrases, we recommend selecting more targeted keyword phrases.
What do we mean by 'targeted keyword phrases'? Well, let's look at a typical search scenario wherein our intrepid guinea pig, 'Horatio', is looking for inexpensive, friendly accommodation in Auckland.
- Horatio enters "hotel auckland" into the Google search bar. Google finds 3,110,000 results relevant to his search in its index. Horatio decides he wants fewer sites to choose from and sites which are more specific to his needs.
- He amends his search to "hotel parnell auckland" and Google finds 145,000 results. The first sites he finds are for large hotels, but there are also listings for b&b style hotel accommodation. Horatio decides that a bed and breakfast option is much more in his price range, so he searches again.
- This time, Horatio refines his search to "b&b accommodation parnell". Google obliges by finding 58,200 results for Horatio to review. Horatio's happy with the choices presented, books his B&B and keeps his fingers crossed for good weather!
Choosing targeted keyword phrases like "b&b accommodation parnell" for optimisation is an useful tactic, especially in highly competitive online fields such as tourism, accommodation, finance and real estate where large directory sites, historically entrenched Web sites, Web sites using pervasive search engine marketing tactics or Web sites with huge resources tend to hog pole positions in the rankings. It's important to be realistic about the keyword phrases your site will rank on search engines for. Forget about taking on IBM, aim 'niche'!
We welcome any feedback or contributions for our next newsletter — email : news@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
