Newsletter : December 2002

NZTO Comment

by Garry Bond, General Manager, New Zealand Tourism Guide

New Zealands Silver Fern seems to have been thrust into the public arena lately with the Rugby Union changing their existing logo. This has brought up all sorts of debate and opens an interesting avenue for discussion especially as the Silver Fern has significance for the tourism industry in this country.

The tourism board use the Silver Fern as part of their branding and Pure NZ campaigns use the logo extensively. How many other tourism operators use the Silver Fern as part of their business branding? I dare say there are several. I would rank the Silver Fern alongside the Kiwi as true New Zealand icons.

The question is then, should there be restrictions on the Silver Fern use? If so how would this be controlled? It's my belief that the Silver Fern belongs to New Zealanders and is a recognisable symbol for the country. Sure you shouldn't be allowed to copy existing logos, insinuate that it's the genuine product or for an overseas company to cash in on its profile but the Kiwi and Silver Fern should be allowed to be used by New Zealanders for New Zealand promotion, products and services.

I hope you have enjoyed our newsletters throughout the year and as this is the last newsletter for 2002, I wish you all a good Christmas season and a prosperous New Year.

Paid Listings with Search Engines

Many search engines are now charging for speedy inclusion into their database or to give sites preferential listings. Gone are the days when you can submit your site to all the top engines for free and expect to get quick service.

Currently a well optimised site can achieve good rankings on most of the top engines without paying. It takes one to two months and there's no guarantee that you'll get into directories like Yahoo, but it's still possible. But the bad news is that there is a clear trend that the top search engines and directories are moving towards a model of charging Web site owners. Over the last six months there has been a lot of activity going on behind the scenes. Search engines and directories are forming alliances and strategies to tap into this new revenue stream.

There are two main types of paid listings services.

• Pay For Inclusion
• Pay Per Click

The main benefits of Pay For Inclusion services are that they may speed up your inclusion, or guarantee a site review, or give you better rankings. Pay Per Click services allow you to obtain preferential listings by bidding for appropriate keywords.

There are many search engines that charge for listings but many of these services are not worthwhile for most Web sites. Here are five paid listings services that we recommend are worth considering if you want to improve your exposure in each of these search engines:

• Inktomi Search/Submit service - USD$39 - Inclusion within 48 hours to America Online, Hotbot, ICQ, IWon, Overture, MSN and Northern Light
• Yahoo! Express - USD$299 - Guaranteed and expedited consideration of your site within 7 business days
• AltaVista Express Inclusion - USD $39 - Fast inclusion and enhanced listings
• Overture - USD$20 minimum monthly spend - A powerful network and the market leader in the Pay Per Click area where you can bid for keywords
• Google AdWords Select - USD$20 minimum monthly spend - Pay Per Click text adverts that appear alongside free listings

View more information at: https://www.avatar.co.nz/web-site-marketing.html

New Zealand Night

67 million homes will be reached in December when the USA Discovery TV Travel Channel will air several programs on New Zealand. Included in the nights events will be Secrets of New Zealand and the recent New Zealand : Royal Tour staring our very own Prime Minister.

Karl Urban, the New Zealand actor from the Lord of The Rings will host the evening and amongst other things he will discuss what he loves most about his country. He also shares anecdotes and experiences from shooting on location in New Zealand during filming of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.

New Zealand Tours Web Site Launched

New Zealand Tourism Online has just launched its final new Web site - New Zealand Tours. This take its tally to four new tourism Web sites launched within the last 3 months. The latest new Web site deals specifically with New Zealand Tours. This site does not detract from the main tourism Web site www.tourism.net.nz which continues to build traffic but adds to the overall Internet marketing strategy.

Visit www.newzealandtourism.co.nz and have a good look around. Listing your tours business on this site costs $225 + GST for a 12 month period.

Here's the final roundup of all the sites that have been recently launched:

• New Zealand Accommodation
• New Zealand Attractions
• New Zealand Transport
• New Zealand Tours

If you aren't sure of your current status on our main tourism Web site, just send an email to web@tourism.net.nz and we'll check for you.

Who's visiting your Web site?

Besides getting the actual statistics about how many people are visiting your Web site, it is also useful to dig a little deeper and try to gain a more accurate picture about the person themselves. Depending on the information you are given, you will then get a profile which you can use in conjunction with your over the counter visitor feedback. You may decide to modify parts of your Web site depending on the feedback you get. The questions you ask will be angled towards your business but they may be similar to this...

• How did you find this Web site?
• Where do you live?
• Are you seriously looking at NZ as a destination for a holiday?
• When do you intend to travel to NZ?
• How do you intend to travel around?
• How many days do you intend to stay in the country for?
• Would you prefer an independent holiday and travel freely around or an arranged tour type holiday? etc

Here are three quick ideas that you may be able to gain this information...

#1: Brief Online Survey - A lot of visitors to your site will be willing to fill out an interesting, brief survey, especially if they get access to the results.

#2: Special Offer or Competition - People love special deals and prizes. It's an integral facet of human nature. You may want to have a periodic special offer or prize draw that includes a process where your site visitors answer a few questions about themselves.

#3: Newsletter - Writing a regular newsletter can be an enormously powerful way to make contact with site visitors and to have an ongoing relationship with them. The key to a successful newsletter is creating something that is of value to your customers and prospects. During the newsletter signup process you can ask viewers for a few details.