Newsletter : June 2016
Written by Steph Kendall
Welcome to the New Zealand Tourism Guide www.tourism.net.nz June 2016 issue. If you have news or comments, please email us news@tourism.net.nz.
In this June newsletter:
Only 'One Year to Go' Until the Lions Arrive!
More than 20,000 visitors are expected to follow The British & Irish Lions tour around New Zealand next year and the message to those planning the trip is "come for the rugby and experience it all." The series spans nearly six weeks, taking in seven regions from Whangarei to Dunedin.
Host regions have already begun preparing for the influx of visitors with additional infrastructure, plans for fan zones, fan trails and other match-related experiences for fans - as well as a variety of other local events and celebrations to coincide with the rugby action.
'One year to go' until The British & Irish Lions tour of New Zealand was marked on 3 June with a cultural ceremony involving the presentation of a carved taiaha - a traditional Māori staff used in challenge – presented to each of the mayors and representatives of the seven host regions.
A Lions tour only happens every 12 years and is a highlight on the global rugby calendar as well as a firm favourite with rugby-mad Kiwis. For more information about the tour, view the British & Irish Lions tour website.
Waitomo Caves Get Celebrity Boost
Celebrity couple, Taiwanese boyband singer and actor Nicky Wu and Chinese actress Liu Shishi shared their wedding photos taken in the Waitomo Glowworm Caves recently. They jetted to New Zealand in February with fashion photographer Liy Zongyuan, ahead of their wedding ceremony in Bali to take "pre-wedding" photos, a Chinese custom where photos of a couple are taken ahead of their nuptials to share with wedding guests.
One photo of actress, Shishi looking up towards the glowworms has been shared more than 10,000 times on Chinese social channels Weibo and WeChat.
View the photograph and full article.
Travel Plans Shaping Brexit Opinion
According to a survey conducted by travel insurance company Holidaysafe.co.uk, 44 per cent of travellers fear travel will become more difficult if the UK leaves the EU. The survey of more than 3000 UK residents also found that 33 per cent of UK travellers say that ease of travel in the EU has a bearing on how they will vote in the EU Referendum. Another issue concerning holidaymakers is a potential hike in flight prices.
Research commissioned by travel deal website Travelzoo, in conjunction with Bournemouth University, goes one step further to suggest leaving the EU could cost up to STG4.1 billion a year in international tourist spending in the UK.
In addition to the loss of income, there's also the potential loss of benefits EU membership has afforded over the years - including the EHIC card for health cover, improvements to ATOL package protection and delay and cancellation compensation. There is a lot for Brits to consider before casting their vote at the polling station on 23rd June, but it seems the future of travel is playing a significant role in shaping public opinion.
Does your Website Speak Plain English?
Sourced by Stephanie Kendall
Content solutions company, VisibleThread use automated analysis and automated language scans to review written content and identify defects and liability concerns. According to VisibleThread some Australian and New Zealand government websites fail to meet plain English website guidelines. In their sample of government websites, VisibleThread analysed up to 100 pages for these metrics:
- Readability - How readable is the content?
- Passive Language - Active Language communicates clearly. What proportion of sentences is passive?
- Long Sentences - What proportion of all sentences are too long (more than 20 words)?
- Long Sentences - What proportion of all sentences are too long (more than 20 words)?
These metrics can prove useful for any tourism business owner reviewing, editing and publishing literature either online or in print. In the tourism industry, presenting easy to understand text is essential for clear communication, especially to tourists or website visitors speaking English as a second-language.
A few suggestions about how to review your content with a view to providing clearer and more readable content follow based on these metrics:
Readability
- Review Wiki information on readability tests. Flesch reading-ease tests, first developed for the US Navy in the 1970s, score "plain English" as writing easily understood by 13 to 15-year-old students (8th or 9th grade) with a score of 60-70.
- Place some text on this online tester, https://readability-score.com/text/ you can see what your text scores. (Note: After a couple of free uses, you encouraged to pay for this service.)
Passive or Active Voice?
- Active voice describes a sentence where the subject performs the action stated by the verb. In passive voice sentences, the subject is acted upon by the verb. See examples below:
- I ran the obstacle course in record time. (active)
The obstacle course was run by me in record time. (passive) - The staff is required to watch a safety video every year. (active)
A safety video will be watched by the staff every year. (passive) - No one responded to my sales ad. (active)
My sales ad was not responded to by anyone. (passive) - Review the text on your website and try to assess how active and passive voice is used.
- As active voice is (arguably) clearer and more effective in communicating a message, try to rewrite your text accordingly.
Long Sentences
- Express only one idea in each sentence. Long, complicated sentences often mean that you aren't sure about what you want to say.
- Shorter sentences are better for conveying complex information; they break the information up into smaller, easier-to-process units.
Word Complexity Density
- Avoid complex, hard to understand words (and jargon) and use words that are more simple and direct:
- Prefer the familiar word to the far-fetched or colloquial
- Prefer the familiar word to the far-fetched or colloquial
- Avoid the use of many words where fewer would do
- Prefer the short word to the long
- Prefer the Saxon word (plain) to the Romance word (flowery).
Tools for Business: Readability Checkers
With our 'Does your Website Speak Plain English?' article in mind, this month we have taken a look at some of the free (and paid) tools available for testing content readability:
- https://readability-score.com/ - Readability-Score.com is free to use for occasional users. For those who need a bit more power, and access to regular URL analysis, bulk processing tools, file analysis tools, readability and keyword density alerts or even a readability API; paid subscription plans are also offered.
- http://www.webpagefx.com/tools/read-able/ - The Readability Test Tool provides a quick and easy way to test the readability of your work. You can test all, or part of a web page, or simply type in your text. Link directly from your page - it will compute the results for the referring page.
- http://www.readabilityformulas.com/free-readability-formula-tests.php - Free Text Readability Consensus Calculator that takes a sample of your writing and calculates the number of sentences, words, syllables, and characters in your sample.
- http://www.thewriter.com/what-we-think/readability-checker/ - A free readability checker that checks your writing against the Flesch-Kincaid reading ease score, the Gunning Fog score and the SMOG index ('Simple Measure of Gobbledygook').
Top Tourism Site of the Month
This month's Top Tourism Site Award goes to Rangihau Ranch Horse Riding.
Not only does this fully responsive website feature a fade-in and fade-out transition effect giving a lovely touch to a fresh and modern website, but it scores highly in the SMOG index! In other words, it is clear to understand having been written in 'plain English' and has good construction (in terms of menu layout and site hierarchy).
It may have been useful to include a thumbnail sized map on the home page for those site visitors (particularly overseas visitors) who would not know where the ranch's location is in relation to major North Island centres.
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