Articles: Tourism Market Info

Meet us re your website

We always like to meet our clients if we can before we work with them. That allows them to be sure who they are dealing with and for us, to really understand their business needs and issues.

You can see our testimonials at http://www.netaction.co.nz/about-us/testimonials/
Case studies are at http://www.netaction.co.nz/about-us/case-studies/

If you would like to meet us and discuss SEO and anything else related to your website, please contact us.

We will be travelling between Auckland and Queenstown in August and September. If you are a Tourism business somewhere in between, let us know and we will arrange to have a no obligation meeting with you. You get to pick our brains for free!

Advice & Planning, General Interest, Our Services, Tourism Market Info

Objection to Increasing Commissions on bookings

Tourism Accommodation Australia (TAA) is calling on travellers to bypass Online Travel Agencies (OTA’s) like Booking.com and to book direct in response to recent commission rate increases.

Expedia and Priceline dominate the OTA market so are now in a position where they can dictate the terms even more and have recently increased commission rates. Expedia now owns Wotif and Priceline owns Agoda and Hooroo.

TAA is making a case with ACCC (Commerce regulator) to ensure that the OTAs don’t follow the European and US trends where booking commissions have now reached 20% plus.

From recent discussions with our clients, we know how concerned operators are about increase in the amount of commissions they are now paying and looking for ways to maximise direct bookings from their own websites.

View the full article at http://www.tourismaccommodation.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/TAA-MR-Hooroo-OTAs-May-15.pdf

Or contact us to see how to maximise direct bookings from your own website.

General Interest, Tourism Industry News, Tourism Market Info

Preventing Bad Online Reviews

We hope that your great service and product means that you only get positive online reviews.

But to minimise the risk of bad reviews, in the US there have been cases of hotels adding a “non disparagement” clause into their terms and conditions and/or check-in forms. This means the guest agrees (with or without reading the fine print) not to write a bad online review of the property. The hotel could then sue if they did!

Every month 280 million visitors check out Tripadvisor reviews. 89% of people say that online reviews are instrumental in their decision. The introduction of no-review policies and rules would certainly change the importance and credibility of online reviews in the decision process. It could well mean the demise of some online review sites as they would no longer represent the whole picture..

See the article “Could lawyers Destroy Tripadvisor?“

Tourism Industry News, Tourism Market Info, Tripadvisor

Booking Site Commissions

We have recently been travelling and meeting with a large number of our Net Action clients. It was great to get excellent feedback about our services and issues facing website owners.

One recurring theme was the concern of website owners about how much commission they are paying to booking sites like Booking.com, Expedia and others.

We agree, but website owners also need to realise that the whole way that people get information and make bookings has changed greatly in the last 2 to 3 years. It is hard to compete with the impact and profile of these large sites – it is a case of use them or miss the business. Expect to see this increase further as sites like Tripadvisor try to maximise their return on investment further.

And consider that in the good ole days, you maybe paid a lot of money to be in printed media with limited distribution, or you paid travel agents and others to expose and sell your product. That is assuming you could actually convince them to do that for you.

So maybe this way is actually less effort for you? More bookings for less work perhaps? Whether it is or not, it is a reality for now.

The costs may just be reflected in a different part of your Profit and Loss statement. Commissions instead of advertising maybe? It would be interesting to compare those figures and the relative exposure and bookings achieved for your business.

Tourism Market Info

Adventure Operator Audits & Registration

In an effort to stamp out “Cowboys” and maintain high standards, Worksafe NZ is tightening up on rules for adventure operators. Operators falling under the Worksafe NZ regulations are required to complete safety audits and registration by a 1 November 2014 deadline.

The Worksafe NZ site states:

Operator responsibility

It is the responsibility of operators to ensure the safety of their clients and staff at all times. They remain responsible for ensuring the safety of their operations on a daily basis.

This includes identifying whether they are subject to the regulations and, if so, to ensure they are audited and registered by 1 November.

So if you are an adventure operator or have some sort of business that may fall under these regulations you should ensure that you know what your responsibilities are and if you are subject to audit and registration.

Failure to do so appears to have significant consequences. This includes your ability to advertise in regional guides, and Tourism New Zealand will only support registered operators.

Full information is available at http://www.business.govt.nz/worksafe/about/what-we-do/adventure-activities/for-operators#guidance

and

http://www.supportadventure.co.nz

Tourism Industry News, Tourism Market Info

Why People Come to NZ

We thought it would be interesting to find out why people want to come to NZ. So we asked a couple of “foreigners” to write and article for us.

Kristee from the Philippines has a bucket list to do here and Priyanka from India wants to bring the family for various reasons.

Their articles on our blog at http://www.greatnewzealand.co.nz/blog/ and also linked from our Google + page at https://plus.google.com/103576501952883452343/posts

The article by Priyanka particularly is wonderfully refreshing and enthusiastic – well worth a read.

We are regularly adding content and posts about New Zealand. Feel free to share these from our Google + Page if you wish. https://plus.google.com/103576501952883452343/posts

We hope you like the articles we have added. Your comments and suggestions for more articles are welcome.

If you would like us to write articles for your blog or Google + page, just contact us.

Google Plus, Tourism Market Info

Chinese Tourists

In spite of us thinking we are a huge destination for Chinese tourists, NZ is number 23 only their list of destinations. They are expected to make 80 million overseas trips this year. (ref Hotels Combined)

Hong Kong is number 1 with between 6 million and 9 million tourists from China (depends on source). France, at number 11, only gets around 600,000.

More information is available at

http://chinatraveltrends.com/chinas-outbound-travel-boom-shows-no-sign-of-slowing
and
http://www.travelchinaguide.com/tourism/2012statistics/outbound.htm

Tourism Market Info

Free Wifi How much should you offer?

We are strong supporters of accommodation businesses providing free Wifi for their guests. Anecdotal evidence strongly supports the fact that people use this as a key decision-making factor when selecting a property.

Your room rates may be a bit more expensive than your competitor’s down the road but people may still choose you if you offer free Wifi. They like something for nothing so it is very good PR that secures you business and happy clients!

But, there is a cost to you for offering this Continue reading →

Advice & Planning, Technology, Tourism Market Info