Glaciers in New Zealand
Maori children
Northland, New Zealand
Queen Charlotte Sound
Routeburn Track
Boating in Taupo
Tongariro, New Zealand
Wellington, New Zealand

Newsletter : May 2002

brought to you by New Zealand Tourism Guide www.tourism.net.nz

NZTO Comment

by Garry Bond

Well it's the end of the financial year again for many businesses (I hope you're organised as it can be a hellish job at times - but just count yourself lucky that you are in an industry where you don't have to account for 50,000 widgets!). All in all though, the general feedback I have been getting is that the year hasn't been too bad and we are now in the fortunate position of taking the World's centre stage in several areas.

1. Movies. This is a big one but we can't take a shotgun approach. There has to be a concentrated combined effort between the Government, the movie sector and the tourism industry. Lets all hope that the outcome benefits everyone and we aren't drawn into an internal "tax breaks" vs "no tax breaks" scrap.

2. Golf. Although this won't last a long in the spotlight as an Oscar or two, this sure can't hurt our reputation and once again draws people into thinking about NZ. Even Bill Clinton is on his way back to NZ to address a paying audience and he might slip in a round or two.

3. Rugby. Is any publicity good publicity? Well I guess so and we are certainly in the thick of it at the moment trying to nail the sub-hosts job for the next World Cup. Lets hope for both NZ and the Tourism Industry that we do get the games here. A lot of dosh is at stake.

Keywords and Search Engines

by Mark Rocket at Avatar Web Promotions

Ever wondered how people find your Web site? In a lot of cases it will be through a major tourism Web site such as New Zealand Tourism Online where they specialise in getting large numbers of qualified traffic. The other main way is via search engines such as www.google.com. The person will type in something specific and hopefully you will end up on the list of results. Often though, trying to guess what a person types into these search engines is tricky. Fortunately there are Web tools that will help you to research what your target audience is typing into a search engine.

WordTracker collects search results from 24 major search engines and compiles them into a database that is constantly being updated. Check it out at www.wordtracker.com

Use the above sites by typing in a phrase that you think will be popular, then see what variations pop up. Often you will come across keyword phrases that you wouldn't anticipate your target audience to use. For example, at the Overture site you can type in "new zealand hotel" and see that other variations include:

  • travel hotel guide new Zealand
  • hotel auckland new Zealand
  • Auckland new Zealand hotel
  • luxury hotel new Zealand
  • hotel in wellington new Zealand
  • new Zealand luxury hotel
  • hotel in Auckland new Zealand
  • Wellington new Zealand hotel
  • centra hotel new Zealand
  • scenic circle hotel new Zealand
  • new Zealand hotel accommodation

If nothing else this is an interesting exercise but if you would like further help, Avatar specialises in search engine promotion. In the first instance call our team directly on 0800 14 65 45 or drop an email to web@tourism.net.nz

The World's most popular Web sites

"Top 9" is a site operated by "Omega World Travel" from Fairfax, Virginia. It's set itself the Herculean task of ranking the world's most popular sites. It offers great Categorisation that allows you to see the top sites in areas such as "Jobs", "News", "Sports", and "Travel" etc. It's well worth a look: http://www.top9.com

No surprise, Yahoo comes out as the world's most popular Web site: http://www.top9.com/top99s/top99_web_sites.html

A key area that I like to keep an eye on is the top search engine page: http://www.top9.com/top99s/top99_search_engines.html

The heavy weights in the top 5 are Yahoo, MSN, Lycos, Netscape and NBCi. Google.com currently ranks #10 and looks set to overtake Alta Vista (and a number of other engines) in the very near future. Keep your eyes peeled.

Another Email Tip - History

Do you wish sometimes that you could clear your tracks after you have surfed on the Internet? For whatever reason you may wish to do so and here's how:

Clearing your history!
1. With your browser open, select Tools, then Internet Options and finally click the General tab.
2. At the bottom of this screen is the History. To clear your history (the sites you have visited etc), just click the Clear History button. It will ask you if you wish to delete this, click Yes and it's done!
3. You can also shorten the number of days your computer keeps and displays your history. Change this to suit and click OK.

Clearing your autofill (i.e. you start typing in a web address and something else appears on your list - and the same goes for online forms) ...
1. With your browser open, select Tools, then Internet Options and finally click the Content tab.
2. Under the Personal Information section at the the bottom of this screen, click the Auto Complete button.
3. From here you click the Clear Forms button and if you wish you can untick the Web Addresses, Forms and User Names/Password boxes which will disable these altogether.

New Zealand Tourism Guide - Web Site Update

With major design and functionality changes almost complete, most of you will have been notified of about the upgrades to your featured listings and Web pages. For those without any featured listing or those wanting a higher featured profile, call our team on 0800 14 65 45 or email web@tourism.net.nz for more information.

Our slick new site is pulling in more traffic than ever (the average time a visitor spends on our site is currently 15 minutes) and we are about to add over 400 pages of New Zealand content in the coming months.

We continue to work hard and will keep you posted as we progress. Have a great June.

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
Head Office: Christchurch

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New Zealand Coach Tours

The largest range of escorted & small group tours

New Zealand road trips - Let's go on an adventure

New Zealand Road Trips

Let's go on an adventure

New Zealand self-drive tours

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Explore NZ on a custom self-drive package holiday

Bluebridge Ferry

Bluebridge Cook Strait ferries

Cross Cook Strait and enjoy Kiwi hospitality.

World Nomads Travel Insurance

Get Travel Insurance

Travel insurance for independent travellers.