Newsletter : March 2008

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

NZTO Comment

by Garry Bond, General Manager, New Zealand Tourism Online

For those who already have a tourism business, did you get enough help when you first started out? It's a hard road if you had to learn from experience and it probably cost you a bit in time, energy and money too.

For those starting out from scratch or are perhaps buying a tourism business, New Zealand Tourism Online in conjunction with the Tourism Industry Association of New Zealand has "Tourism in Action – A guide to Starting and Developing your Tourism Business" available at no cost. Click here if you want one.

For those already in businesses, did you know that New Zealand Trade and Enterprise provides funds for business training at no cost? The money is used by regional organisations such as the Canterbury Development Corporation to up-skill small and medium sized business owners or managers. Through this organisation I run a few workshops on Web design and marketing and have found it definitely benefits those participating in the course. Other courses usually include:

• Compliance (IRD, ACC & OSH)
• Marketing strategies
• Finance
• E-commerce
• Business systems
• Managing Resources
• Business Planning

Luckily, tourism has been identified as a cluster group for growth in New Zealand and funds will continue to be allocated to continue courses in 2008. If you have a chance, do register with your local business development organisation. You will probably undergo an assessment to make sure you need the courses but it's well worth while.

At the end of the day, the better you run your business, the better it is for not only you personally, but your visitor is likely to have a better experience and tourism as a whole gains people with a higher skill set.

PS: Check out our business centre as well. There maybe useful info available to you.

Creative Tourism

In recent years, creative tourism has gained widespread recognition as a form of interactive cultural travel. Pioneered in New Zealand by Creative Tourism New Zealand, interactive workshops offer tourists the chance to work with local artists and thus get a feel for the country's traditional cultural facets. Among these are for instance bone carving, wood crafting or harakeke (flax) weaving.

As an emerging concept, creative tourism has the potential to add a new dimension to New Zealand tourism. Based on inherent qualities such as authenticity, informality and fun, creative tourism can also be seen as a more sustainable form of travelling. Interactive workshops take place directly in the tutors' homes or working studios, offering tourists a chance to "go behind the scenes" and add a more experiential dimension to their holiday.

Internationally, creative tourism has seen the endorsement of high-profile organisations such as UNESCO, who is administering a major conference on the topic due to be held in Santa Fe in September 2008.

Creative Tourism New Zealand's vision for the future is to develop the network on offer in order to satisfy travellers' needs for authentic engagements in the cultural life of New Zealand today.

For more information, please contact Creative Tourism New Zealand directly or visit www.creativetourism.co.nz.

Are You A Tourism Industry Association of New Zealand Member?

Being an individual tourism operator is not without its challenges. Changes in government legislation, industry reforms and everyday business costs all create obstacles for even the most successful of operators. That's why being a Member of the Tourism Industry Association is absolutely ideal for your business. As an independent, private sector body with around 2000 members, TIANZ speak with one voice for the interests of our entire industry.

Member benefits include:

• Advocacy – TIANZ aim to ensure that tourism is firmly at the top of the agenda when government decisions are made. The size and ability of the organisation to be heard also helps to ensure that industry-specific decisions are made with consultation and transparency.
• Tourism-focused business seminars providing insights into important business issues such as sustainability, managing risk and attracting and retaining staff.
• Special Member rates to key industry events such as TRENZ and our annual Tourism Industry Conference.
• TIANZ exclusive business offers from key businesses throughout New Zealand provide real cost savings on everyday business expenses including tel-communications, office supplies, fuel and banking. These can easily cover the cost of the annual membership fee.

Contact TIANZ on (04) 499-0104 to find out more about why being a member of Tourism Industry Association will be absolutely ideal for your business.

JOIN OR RENEW YOUR MEMBERSHIP BEFORE 30 MAY AND YOU'LL RECEIVE EVEN MORE EXCLUSIVE OFFERS.

Directory Search – New Feature

New Zealand Tourism Online www.tourism.net.nz has recently developed a new directory search to make it even easier for site visitors to find a tourism business listing. This new search is already being highly used by visitors who simply select a region, a category and a keyword such as 'hotel' if they wish to narrow the results.

The search has a prime position on our home page and side menus and complements the normal navigation through a region or via one of the main category sections such as accommodation, attractions, tours etc.

SEARCH SPOTS - LIMITED OPPORTUNITY - HIGH PROFILE - BE QUICK

While the search results return appropriate listings in a randomised order, there are a limited number of search spots available to enable you to be seen regularly in a prominent position at the top of the results page within your region and category.

There are only 10 spots for an entire region and category combination e.g. Queenstown Accommodation, with two listings displayed at any one time (covers apartments, motels, B&B, hotels, backpackers etc). These are rotated every 5 minutes so you continually get to catch a new batch of visitors using the search function. If a keyword is used, your listing will still appear. This is great for cross marketing your business e.g. someone searches for hotel after selecting Queenstown and accommodation and your apartment listing will occupy one of the 10 spots.

SEARCH SPOT OFFER > SPECIAL INTRO DEAL

There is very targeted positioning for businesses with only 10 spots available to cover all categories in your region. It's first in, first served basis.

Type: Directory Search Spot

Position: https://www.tourism.net.nz/search/ (simply select your region and category to see where you'd be placed)

Price: $295 + GST for a 3 month period. Note: you can buy 2 or more spots for increased intensive coverage or extend for longer marketing periods of 6, 9 or 12 months

Hot Bonus: Special intro deal with 1 month extra online for free if buying a 3, 6, 9 or 12 month period

What do the SEARCH SPOTS look like?

Here's what the spots look like. We may have listings already sold occupying the spot or a placeholder for travel insurance or NZ products. The placeholders will be removed once the spots have been sold.

BUY A SPOT

Simply email us directly to order a spot (ask for your region and category so we can check availability), contact your tourism consultant or call us on 0800 14 65 49. We will confirm its availability and it will appear live within a few days.

Driving Visitors With A Blog

Written by: Steph Kendall, Avatar Web Promotions

Blogs are basically Web sites or sub-sections of a Web site on which bloggers publish text, pictures, videos and forums etc, often in the form of a diary or journal. If you want to increase the amount of traffic to your Web site setting up a blog can be an excellent way of achieving this.

Blogs Driving Traffic

Before you go to the trouble of setting up a blog or maintaining one, consider what medium your audience is most likely to access. If the vast majority of your audience reach you through print for example, then setting up a blog to attract online traffic is probably not the best course of action for you. Setting up a blog from an optimisation point of view, is all about capturing online traffic (or Web users). This traffic can arrive at blog pages or sites via a number of routes such as search engines and content aggregators.

Search Engines – Search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN index blog pages and return relevant posts on their search results pages, alongside Web sites, videos, images etc.

Content Aggregators – Content aggregators are sites that publish information drawn from a number of sources. Some well-known technical and social aggregator sites include Techmeme, digg and reddit.

Top 10 Tips for Successful Blogging

If you are keen to set up a blog to attract a targeted online audience, we suggest keeping in mind the following tips:

1. Set up your blog as yourdomain.co.nz/blog or blog.yourdomain.com.
2. Use a blog editor such as WordPress.
3. Define the goal of your blog and your target audience.
4. Tailor content to achieve business goals and a good return on your time (how to articles, free tips and advice, case studies etc).
5. Create editorial guidelines so all of your blog contributors stick to your business goal.
6. Create original and interesting content including links to other blogs or sites of interest to your audience, so you develop a loyal following.
7. Update your blog regularly for both viewers and search engine spiders (remember, spiders love fresh 'food' and will visit regularly).
8. Write what you know about and be viewed as expert, rather than inept in your field.
9. Make sure you use keyword Meta data in Blog Meta titles, descriptions and content (on the front page and in each post).
10. Submit your blog to directories and blog search engines.