Newsletter : May 2016
Written by Steph Kendall
Welcome to the New Zealand Tourism Guide www.tourism.net.nz May 2016 issue. If you have news or comments, please email us news@tourism.net.nz.
In this May newsletter:
NZ and India Make New Deal to Boost Trade & Tourism
New Zealand and India made a new air services deal at the beginning of the month, which the Government says should boost tourism and trade between the two countries. New Zealand airlines now have the opportunity to code-share to seven cities in India - Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kochi, Kolkata, Mumbai and New Delhi.
Air New Zealand, Air India and Singapore Airlines are among the operators which have the potential to run such a direct service. India's population of 1.25 billion people present enormous opportunities for New Zealand. India New Zealand Business Council Treasurer Bhav Dhillon said that getting a direct flight between the two countries would "change the paradigm" of both tourism and trade. Dhillon is reported as saying, "We are very confident that there will be a very robust growth in tourist numbers from India to New Zealand once we have a direct flight between these two countries."
Southland Tourism Experience Needs Amping Up?
Recently Air New Zealand Regional Affairs Manager, Ian Collier said that free attractions may be limiting travel agents' marketing of Southland (as they do not earn commissions) and that up-market tourism packages including quality accommodation could help boost numbers flying into Invercargill and attract high-value tourists to Southland.
Jim Boult, a past director of Tourism New Zealand is due to speak in Invercargill on 9th May at the Southland Chamber of Commerce. He will be talking about how Southland fits into the bigger picture of New Zealand travel and tourism. He has said that up-market tourism packages may not be the answer for Southland tourism, but that the region should aspire to attract high-spending Chinese visitors.
Invercargill Mayor Tim Shadbolt said visitors to Southland "make less noise" about their travels because the tourist attractions in the south were generally more nature based, rather than being commercial bungy jump-type attractions. He believes Southland is doing all it can to promote itself. He has said, "We may not be the bungy-jumping centre of the world but we've got a good centre for eco-tourism and bird watching. If you're a bird-watcher and just want to stand in the bush with binoculars and look at birds, it's very hard to make money out of that and use the money for infrastructure."
Where the Wild Things Are - Dunedin
A campaign to encourage Australian female family "decision-makers" and "empty-nesters" to experience Dunedin in winter has begun. Dunedin City Council agency Enterprise Dunedin joined local tourism operators, Air New Zealand, TripAdvisor and others to create the Where the Wild Things Are campaign.
The campaign, costing $120,000, began yesterday. It will promote events such as the Wild Dunedin Festival, the Midwinter Carnival, Dunedin Cadbury Chocolate Carnival and Jaffa Race, the International Science Festival and Puaka Matariki celebrations to women who made the decisions in families and ''empty nester'' couples in Australia.
The campaign was targeting families and mothers in the 30 to 50-year-old age bracket who were decision-makers for families. Many of the events promoted were family events. As well, the campaign targeted empty-nesters, and the older women in that demographic who made decisions.
Popular Buzzwords for 2016
Sourced by Stephanie Kendall
Following on from last month's Buzzwords Without the Buzz article, we take a look at some of the buzzwords which may (or may not) prove popular during the year. Whether you use or abuse them is up to you, but it's always handy to know what they mean! Take a look at:
- Content marketing: Creation of content online that is going to drive sales, or search traffic because it's interesting, insightful and causes people to like your company. (This is useful to know not only as a buzzword but as an effective online marketing strategy! – Ed)
- Amplify: Does this have more impact that 'grow' or 'increase' – ask the millennials in your company what they think! Would using the term 'amplify' help you deliver a killer business presentation...?
- Insight-as-a-service: You may have noticed a few marketing/software companies in particular offering tools that not only crunch data, but which also suggest actions and alerts. "First comes data. Then comes insight. And next up: insight delivered as a service."
- Recrutainment: An interesting concept to mull over... take a look at your recruitment process. Is it entertaining enough? Apparently, if you want to engage top talent, the way to do it is through gamification – quizzes, social media, virtual reality and online competitions.
- Wantrepreneur: Someone who thinks about or talks about being an entrepreneur or starting a business but never gets started. The term is also applied to individuals who like to talk about starting a business without actually doing any of the work required.
- Influencer marketing: Influencer marketing involves marketing products and services to those who have a sway over the things other people buy. For example, bloggers have become important influencers because they are seen as authentic and have loyal followings
- Over The Top Service (OTTS): Forget 'going the extra a mile', this year we're talking OTTS as the concept of going above and beyond for your customers.
- Blockchain: A blockchain is a record, or ledger, of digital events - one that's "distributed," or shared between many different parties. It can only be updated by consensus of a majority of the participants in the system.
- Return on Relationship: Unlike ROI, which is return on investment, ROR is the return you as a company or person get from nurturing relationships and can be measured mainly in terms of loyalty, sharing and recommendations.
Tools for Business: Broken Link Checkers
Clicking on a broken link and being directed to an Error 404 'Page Not Found' page is frustrating for a user no matter how creatively it has been designed. It also gives the impression that you as the business owner are not looking after your website, it may damage your online reputation and conversion opportunities and affect your website's search engine rankings.
A little time spent housekeeping and using a link checker can help you identify, fix or remove 'dead ends' on your website. Another thing to consider is when you have a new website built: Ensure that the Web Developers do a site-audit and redirect any links that have changed, as more often than not, this step has been forgotten.
There are a number of tools available to help you with this task:
- https://wordpress.org/plugins/broken-link-checker/ - If you have a WordPress site, this plugin will check your posts, comments and other content for broken links and missing images, and notify you if any are found. You should be aware that this plugin can be resource hungry, may slow your website down and sometimes show false results.
- http://www.brokenlinkcheck.com/ - This offers a free site links check for you.
- https://validator.w3.org/checklink - This Link Checker looks for issues in links, anchors and referenced objects in a Web page, CSS style sheet, or recursively on a whole Web site.
- https://linktiger.com/ - LinkTiger will hunt your websites for broken links every day and notify you with rich report.
301 Re-directs and 404 Not Found Pages
If you delete or change URLs on your website, it is sound practice to redirect pages using a 301 redirect. This is the best way to ensure that users and search engines are directed to the correct page. The 301 status code means that a page has permanently moved to a new location.
An Error 404 not found page should be added to your website as a fallback plan.
Top Tourism Site of the Month
This month's Top Tourism Site Award goes to Oyster Accessible Travel.
Oyster Accessible Travel is an online booking and travel website designed primarily to offer travel options for people who have a range of accessibility requirements including adaptive equipment and transport.
The website is uncluttered and clearly laid out, with excellent navigation and search functionality. The quality of images on the home page could be slightly improved perhaps and the shout line text used more effectively to highlight the website's key point of difference – that of providing a travel guide for accessible travel.
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