Newsletter : Winter 2009 Issue 2
brought to you by New Zealand Tourism Guide www.tourism.net.nz
In this winter newsletter:
NZTG Comment
by Garry Bond, New Zealand Tourism Guide
What a good idea. Tourism New Zealand is using guerrilla marketing (maybe that word's a bit harsh) to leverage the campaign 'The Great Kiwi Invite' in a cost effective and appealing way. Simply – it uses New Zealanders to spread the word. And why not! New Zealanders are known as great travellers and excellent hosts. If we all play a mall part in this and invite one person, then we could be onto a winner.
With tourism growth rates recently revised to 2.5% over the next 7 years, you could look it as a major correction in the market however by 2015 international visitor numbers are forecast to reach 2.9 million, up by 18.6% or 455,000 more visitors than we get now. So it's really just a reality check and overall it's a positive outlook for the industry. All we need to do now is send two of those 'Great Kiwi Invites' and we'll be well on the way to maximising visitor numbers.
The New Zealand Backpacker Industry Conference
Thursday 17 and Friday 18 September 2009
An important event on the tourism calendar this year will be the inaugural New Zealand Backpacker Industry Conference to be held at AUT University in Auckland. The Conference is being convened by the New Zealand Tourism Research Institute at AUT University (www.nztri.org) and NZBackpack.com.
The Conference will be of particular interest to those in the transport, accommodation and activities sectors, as well as regional and national tourism organisations.
Guest speakers include the Hon John Key, Prime Minister and Minister of Tourism; George Hickton, Chief Executive, Tourism New Zealand; and Tim Cossar, Chief Executive, Tourism Industry Association New Zealand.
For more information on this event please refer to:
www.backpackerconference.org.nz
15 Ways To Improve Your Web Site's Performance
By Mark Rocket, Avatar and nzs.com
Is your website trying to increase accommodation occupancy rates or simply all you want is for it to be more effective. No matter what your reason is to have a website, you've got to keep your eye on the ball and continually enhance your website to ensure you're not overrun by your online competitors.
Kicking off, it's important to get clarity on what you're trying to achieve. This will help you to ascertain what type of approach you'd like to take and how many resources to throw at your website. Document your objectives and develop a plan on how to reach them.
Over the years I've found that many people get a website designed and developed but then are not sure what to do next. This introduction is designed to help website operators get a lot of the information they need in one place. It would be great to see more New Zealand websites performing at a world-class level, which will greatly benefit the New Zealand web industry and our day-to-day online interactions.
Here are my "First 15" recommendations on what New Zealand website owners should consider. I have given emphasis to helping commercially orientated websites but many of the concepts will transfer across to non-commercial projects. Each of these topics can involve in-depth and resource-consuming execution but it will make a huge difference even if you just tackle the basics in each area.
1. Professional Design
Is your website professional and appealing to the eye? Are you using the right imagery? If your website looks aesthetically displeasing or amateurish, then viewers will often leave quickly more
2. Ease of Usability
Is your website easy to read and easy to navigate? As a rule the key is to keep things simple and designed for unsophisticated viewers. Your website's font size, font colour and screen width should work on a wide number of viewing platforms more
3. Compelling Text
Text should be well-written with no typing or grammatical errors. Make sure several people have fully read through and edited each page of your website more
4. Sticky Content
It's not just about getting visitors to come once but it's also vital that people return and/or bookmark your website. You'll know from your own web usage that you don't return to most websites you visit, so you'll appreciate that this is a challenging topic. Think carefully about what your online target market is seeking or could be interested in more
5. Advanced Site Statistics
Most standard hosting packages come with basic statistics reporting on popular pages, visitor numbers and visitor referral sites. Despite this, you should consider more
6. Successful Search Engine Optimisation
Most websites get the vast majority of their traffic from search engines, so this is a crucial area to spend time and money on, ensuring you are not lost in cyberspace. If you get this area humming, then you can obtain incredible results more
7. Relevant Search Engine Submission
Check to see your site is appearing in relevant search engines and, if not, submit your site. You don't actually need to submit to your websites to most of the big search players - engines like Google will follow links from other websites (see points 8 and 9) but it doesn't hurt to speed things up and it's also good to make sure you're included in the smaller engines more
8. Beneficial Web Directory Submission
It's beneficial that your website is listed on popular New Zealand and international web directories .You can get good qualified traffic from relevant directories such as www.tourism.net.nz but also a quality directory listing from an authoritative website will help you achieve better rankings in the main search engines more
9. Quality Link Building
You should create numerous paths into your website from other quality websites. The major search engines analyse the links into your website from other websites – to cut a long story short – the more quality links you have, then the better rankings you'll get more
10. Targeted Search Advertising
Google has over 90% of the market share of people searching for New Zealand online content, so merits a special mention in respect to online advertising. The vast majority of viewers click on the free search results but it can take time, expertise and/or be difficult to get your website ranking in the competitive top ten results via search engine optimisation more
11. Credible Local Advertising
There's a plethora of New Zealand websites that sell online advertising offerings. Before committing, check the website has solid credibility and is getting a healthy monthly total of unique visitors relevant to your industry more
12. Complementary Offline Promotion
It's often a good idea to complement your online activities with a real world presence. There are many options, but some quick examples include: signage outside a physical premise, vehicle signage, TV and radio advertising, newspaper and magazine advertisements, trade shows and special events, billboards, brochures, leaflets, pavement ads, number plates, branded merchandise (pens, mouse pads, t-shirts etc) and direct mailings more
13. Popular Social Media
Consider using popular social media tools, websites and/or widgets to connect with your customers on a more personal level. Some popular examples include more
14. Useful Content Enhancements
There's a wonderful array of excellent bells and whistles that you can use to give your website more firepower and sizzle. Some free options include more
15. Quality Content Publishing
Getting other sites to link to you, as noted above in point 9, is an important activity. Publishing content, or article marketing, on other people's sites is a variation on this theme with the added bonus of providing a lot more of your content and keyword rich links on authoritative sites more
It's important to get clarity about your website's key objectives and to prioritise the areas you want to improve. Coaching a winning website is very much about constant incremental improvement – keep at it and you will win the crucial match-ups against your competition.
Product Focus – Map Category Listing
These high profile feature listings allow only one business to be shown in each category across the site e.g. one feature listing for apartments, one feature listing for scenic tours etc.
As a traveller navigates by clicking a main section like accommodation, then a category such as Eco and Nature, you are seen immediately above the map (see picture below).
Some of the map category feature listings are already taken so check to see if yours is available now by visiting our www.tourism.net.nz site. If it's taken you will see a business listed however if you see World Nomads Online Travel Insurance or nothing at all, then it's available.
Price: $1,595 + GST for a 12 month period or $895 + GST for a 6 month period.
Bonus: If the traveller clicks 'view all listings', then your feature listing will also be seen at the top of these pages.
Interested? If you already have a listing on our site simply contact your tourism sales consultant, contact us by email or call toll free on 0800-146-549.
Tourism Roundup
News from New Zealand and around the World.
NEW ZEALAND NEWS
Forecast Tourism Growth Slows in short-term
International visitor arrivals are forecast by the Ministry of Tourism to grow by an average of 2.5 per cent per annum over the next seven years but it isn't as low as it seems.
One-Year Milestone for Qualmark Green
It's not easy being green, but over 200 tourism businesses have shown it can be done by achieving Qualmark Green enviro-ratings in the past year.
Thai 'Prince of Smiles' to Tour New Zealand
One of the biggest names in Thai pop music, Ice Sranyu, will visit New Zealand in September – along with 60 of his fans.
PM Launches 'Great Kiwi Invite' Tourism Campaign
Prime Minister and Minister of Tourism John Key has launched a new campaign encouraging Kiwis to invite their overseas relatives and friends to visit New Zealand.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Londoners prove to be the most adventurous travellers
With the peak summer travel period now underway new research from First Rate Exchange Services has revealed some interesting variations in the UK's international travel trends. Savvy travellers in the East Midlands are most likely to seek out the better value offered by destinations in Eastern Europe this summer, with 22 per cent of travellers in the region stating they intend to travel to countries such as Croatia and Hungary.
New exclusive partnership of Expedia.com with SeatGuru
Expedia.com customers can now select the best airline seats, based on user generated reviews from real flyers, thanks to a new exclusive partnership with TripAdvisor's SeatGuru, the Web's most comprehensive source for airline information. The partnership, announced, integrates SeatGuru flyer reviews of airplane seats into the seat maps for most flights sold on Expedia.com.
Demand soars for summer holidays with the family pet
With the recession denting the family holiday fund, dreams of foreign beaches are put on hold for a while, as many Britons head to a seaside nearer home this year. But there is one unforeseen beneficiary – the family pet.
The south-eastern European countries have the lowest price
Eurostat's survey revealed that price levels in 2008 differed widely across Europe: Northern European countries tend to have the highest prices while the south-eastern European countries have the lowest prices. Southern and central European countries tend to show price levels closer to the EU average.
We welcome any feedback — send your comments to: news@tourism.net.nz
Regards,
The Team
Ph 0800 14 65 49
www.tourism.net.nz
New Zealand Tourism Guide Limited
Head Office: 179 Tuam Street, Christchurch