Newsletter : April 2015
Written by Steph Kendall
Welcome to the New Zealand Tourism Guide www.tourism.net.nz April 2015 issue. If you have news or comments, please email us news@tourism.net.nz.
In this April newsletter:
Baby Boomers Hit the Road
The NZ Herald recently reported that Baby Boomers are increasingly buying luxury RVs (recreational vehicles) instead of investing in holiday homes according to Open Road (a motorhome division of Jucy rentals).
Jucy reported that Kiwis aged 50 and over had spent more than $500,000 on RVs in one recent weekend exhibition. Dan Alpe of Jucy said, "These buyers have disposable income due to downsizing from a family home, or those who are about to retire. Traditionally they would have been the people buying a bach at the beach, but that isn't an option for a lot of people now due to property prices, while others don't want to be tied to the same location all the time..."
Top 10 Holiday Parks also said the growing popularity of luxury RVs was evident and many parks were increasing site sizes to accommodate large, luxury motorhomes.
Auckland's the Summer Hot Spot
Occupancy in Auckland hotels reached a record high in what has been described as a golden summer for tourism. Figures released recently by Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development showed hotel occupancy reaching new levels with domestic and international visitors increasing the occupancy rate to 83% for the year ending February. Spending on Auckland hotel rooms increased by $27.9 million compared to the previous year.
The number of New Zealanders visiting Auckland in the year to February reached more than four million domestic annual guest nights. This past year was also the first time Auckland had reached three million annual international guest nights.
New Air New Zealand Service Means New US Gateway
Air New Zealand has announced the commencement of flights between Houston in the USA and Auckland. Tourism New Zealand's Kevin Bowler said, "Visitor arrivals from the USA have been a stand-out performer in recent years, driven in large part by Tourism New Zealand and Air New Zealand's work to capitalise on the Americans' love of The Hobbit Trilogy.
This new service will enable us to broaden New Zealand's reach into the USA and the states that already deliver our second, third and fourth largest arrival numbers namely Texas, New York and Florida. Residents of southern states are known to travel during their summer to avoid the heat, which aligns perfectly to Tourism New Zealand's strategy to encourage shoulder season travel.
By providing visitors with an alternative to LA or San Francisco gateways we know that this announcement will have a significantly positive impact on the industry."
Check-In Chutney
Let's hope this experience doesn't put off other US tourists! An American couple said the confiscation of chutney at Queenstown Airport tarnished their holiday. The chutney was confiscated from their carry-on baggage because it was deemed a "gel" under aviation security rules.
Mr and Mrs Sturman contacted the Otago Daily Times to express their disgust at the experience, which had left a "very unfavourable mark" on their holiday. They said the rules are heavy-handed and security staff should have the discretion to pass items that do not pose a threat to safety. The Aviation Security Service says the rules have been in place for years and are clearly communicated to passengers.
Mr Sturman added, "It is a sad day when cherry chutney is deemed a threat to air travel."
New Google Algorithm Puts Mobile-Friendly Websites First
Written by Steph Kendall
Regular readers may remember that in July 2014, we published an article on how to make your website "mobile friendly". Well, the writing is now well and truly on the wall, as Google announced the launch of a new mobile-focused algorithm this week. This means that website rankings in Google's search engine results will be directly affected by how mobile-friendly Google perceives that website to be.
Companies without a good mobile website will suffer, as searchers on mobile devices will see sites with good mobile experiences ranked higher than those with no mobile or poor mobile sites. This change reinforces Google's mobile-focus – it previously just labelled search results that had good mobile websites – and is expected to have an impact bigger than the previous two algorithm updates Panda and Penguin, which affected 12% and over 3% of search results respectively.
"We will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results," said Google webmasters.
The change is designed to help users find search results formatted for their device, Google said. The company often makes tweaks to its algorithms and technology powering search, but announces few.
That this has been announced suggests Google expects the change to cause a big impact, potentially affecting traffic and revenue for a number of sites that heavily rely on search results.
What to Do Now
Webmaster who signed up to Webmaster Tools may have received an email from Google regarding any mobility usability issues found with their websites. In the message, Webmasters are informed about pages with mobile usability errors which "will not be seen as mobile-friendly by Google Search, and [which] will therefore be displayed and ranked appropriately for smartphone users."
Google do provide useful links to resources for web designers and developers including:
- Read about building mobile-friendly websites on the Google Developer site.
- If your site is built with software like WordPress or Joomla (also known as "Content Management System" or CMS), read the easy steps to make a CMS mobile-friendly.
10 Tips to Improve Business
Compiled by Steph Kendall
This month's tips are published in full on Stay Smart Online (the Australian Government's online safety and security website) and are relevant to all businesses. They are designed to help everyone understand the risks and simple steps that help to secure a business online. Please refer to the website for the full advice.
- Provide online security awareness - Put in place an online security awareness program to keep staff informed about good online security practices. You should put at least one person in charge of communicating to all staff responsibilities regarding online security.
- Include online security in your business plan - Ensure you have an online security plan that becomes an essential part of an overall business plan. Your plan should clearly and simply outline the key principles and rules for online security within your business. You should review it regularly.
- Budget for online security - Allow resources for an effective online security plan when drawing up your annual business plans and budgets. Check with your insurance provider to check what is covered due to online security incidents.
- Password practise - Implement a strong password practise that identifies what rules apply to passwords used in your business. Ensure all staff are aware of what your password practise is and check that everyone is abiding by it.
- Point-Of-Sale (POS) security - Ensure that your POS system is behind a firewall and ensure that there is strong encryption for the transmission of all data (e.g., cardholder data) between your POS system and the POS service provider. Keep anti-malware software up to date.
- Protect against suspicious online orders/purchasing - Consider limiting delivery to credit card billing addresses, run credit checks on new business customers, verify payment receipt with your provider (for example PayPal, Visa or MasterCard) before sending goods or providing services and use your payment provider's fraud screening program. Ensure your e-commerce website is secure using current software and your server has a firewall and anti-virus software, especially if you have created your own e-commerce site.
- Backup and recovery options - Develop a backup plan to ensure your business is able to recover quickly and completely from a system crash, data corruption or breach or other setback.
- Minimise and manage spam - Reduce the amount of spam you receive and manage what does reach your inbox securely. Check with your Internet Service Provider about the spam filtering they offer.
- Protect your email address - Reduce spam by providing a simple web form that allows customers to contact you without needing an email address. Make sure that email addresses provided to your business are protected and that you comply with privacy and consumer legislation.
- Install security software - Protect against most email viruses, worms and Trojans by completing weekly virus scans, keeping filtering and security software up to date and installing security patches or all operating system software and application software and set them to update automatically.
More Business Tips
You'll find more business tips in our newsletter archive, alongside:
Top Tourism Site of the Month
This month's Top Tourism Site Award goes to Glacier Southern Lakes Helicopters, Queenstown.
www.glaciersouthernlakes.co.nz
Clean, crisp and clear - this website design is rather like the mountain air that Glacier Southern Lakes Helicopters' aircraft fly in (on a good day of course). It uses an SEO plug-in for WordPress websites efficiently with lots of keywords in the Meta Data and in key locations on the page - look at heading 1, first paragraph of text, bold formatted text etc.
There is good use of page architecture highlighting positive reviews of the company on the sub-page design. However, all links to social media and 'quick links' are rather hidden below the fold. Overall the design works well on mobile phones – a much needed requirement especially in light of Google's new algorithm (see this month's article).
Nominate a Site
If you think a New Zealand travel or tourism website deserves a 'Top Tourism Site Award', let us know about it. (View further information about the award criteria).
About the Top Tourism Site Award
The New Zealand Tourism Guide confers a Top Tourism Site Award to websites that:
- Enhance New Zealand as a travel destination
- Publish useful and informative content
- Are laid out in a professional and aesthetically-pleasing manner
- Are designed effectively for the World Wide Web
- May demonstrate easy functionality, interactivity, originality, outstanding graphic quality and marketing reach.
We welcome any feedback — send your comments to: news@tourism.net.nz
Kind regards,
The Team
Ph 0800 14 65 49
www.tourism.net.nz
New Zealand Tourism Guide
Head Office: Ground Floor, 518 Colombo Street, Christchurch