Newsletter : September 2002

NZTO Comment

by Garry Bond, General Manager, New Zealand Tourism Guide

Spring is in the air and with increasing temperatures, the number of visitors tends to rise as well (except if you are in the ski industry). Roll on summer.

I'm sure we all remember September 11th, the ensuing war against Afghanistan and the uncertainty that was brought to our shores. Initial predictions were negative and indeed world tourism had an overall decrease - the first time since 1982. As we progressed through the year however, besides decreases from a couple of Asian countries such as Japan, we have feared remarkably well and the forecast is now for a record 2.11 million visitors for the year to June 2003. New Zealand may be miles away from major countries such as the USA and we can't just zip over to Paris for a day but visitors feel safe and New Zealand isn't such a bad place to live after all. Why visit other countries when other countries can come to us.

Get more bang from your Web site

As we have mentioned in previous newsletters, once your prospects have found your Web site, it is important that its content reflects professionalism and credibility. Professionally written and designed content significantly increases the chances that visitors will take the next step in the sales process - for example, make a booking or an enquiry. Search engine marketing generates prospects while content converts them into customers.

From time to time New Zealand Tourism Online brokers deals for the benefit of those receiving our newsletter. Word Engineering has created a set of writing packages called "Write Site" that make sure the written content of your Web site speaks volumes about your business.

America's Cup Promotion Hits Google

The America's Cup section has now been picked up by the most popular search engine - Google. Here's are some of the results...

• Search Phrase: America's Cup New Zealand Ranking: No 7
• Search Phrase: Louis Vuitton New Zealand Ranking: No 1

We have only a few advertising spots left so if you are interested now would be the time to contact us as many tourism businesses are taking positions on the page for the entire period.

We have priced these competitively and spots start at just $10 + GST per week. If you are looking at maximum exposure up to and during this highly international event, then please call 0800 14 65 47 or email today for more information.

Spam on the Rise

by Mark Rocket, Avatar Web Promotions

If you've had the feeling that the volume of spam (unsolicited email) has increased over the last year, then here's some hard facts for you. Brightmail Inc, which monitors junk email, reports that in June 2001 it tracked 879,000 spam attacks where in June 2002 it tracked 4.8 million. The company also estimates that the percentage of spam for all email traffic rose from 7% last year to 12%-15% this year.

A useful piece of software that we recommend is coincidentally from another Christchurch company. You can download a free version at: http://www.mailwasher.net/

I've used MailWasher myself and it does help to cut back on the junk.

Some features are:

• Bounces back unwanted emails so it looks as if your email address is not valid
• Creates a blacklist so any emails you bounce back puts their sender's details put on the blacklist for easy removal if they return
• You can delete unwanted emails before you download them
• A filtering facility to automatically spot spam
• Warnings for suspected junk mail

Test drive your Web site

A plethora of technical incidents can occur that may disable aspects of your Internet communications. For example, your Web designer may inadvertently change something on your site, your Web host may change some server configuration not knowing that it will affect you, or you may have accidentally changed one of your email settings. Any number of things can happen that can cause a Web site owner to miss out on business.

In our experience these things happen pretty rarely, but to safeguard yourself you should schedule a full test of your Web site at least once a month. Pretend you've never visited your site before and...

• Email yourself from your Web site
• Fill in and submit your enquiry / booking / order form
• Check that all your content is up to date

The recent crash of Internet Service Provider "Voyager" highlights this. We had a few clients who were with Voyager and had email for their domains pointing at their defunct Voyager accounts for many weeks before they realised that they were losing out on email. If you change email accounts then I strongly recommend that you doublecheck with your Web hosting provider that everything is configured correctly.