As a human system that is so embedded in and dependent upon human society and economies, tourism will be profoundly impacted by the scope and depth of the re-think for three reasons:

1. the key human actors in the system are shifting their values due their own personal development and in response to an even deeper shift in our understanding of how the world works . We live at a time in history when an entire worldview is being replaced.
2. The industrial operating model that has enabled the growth and diffusion of tourism is now producing diminishing net returns to most participants. The way business is conducted is being re-shaped.
3. External pressures including global population increase, climate change, resource scarcity, and geo-political and economic shifts in power between regions and countries, will require the tourism economy to pay for services that hitherto have been free or relatively cheap. Increased costs combined with demand volatility will further undermine the resilience of enterprises whose customers have become accustomed to demand more for less and who have not been required to pay the true cost of travel.

I believe that the mass global tourism industry, which is based on a worldview best described as rational, scientific materialism, is in radical decline (despite appearances to the contrary) and needs to be replaced by an alternative.

The industrial model on which tourism is based is collapsing. As it matures, it produces diminishing net, unit returns to all participants, and relies on volume growth to compensate for yield declines.  As visitor volume increases, so do the costs associated with resource depletion, pollution and wealth concentration.

Survival and prosperity depend not just on becoming green but waking up to a whole new way of doing business that can, in part, be summarized as follows:

It’s premature to specify what the emerging model will look like and how it will work but we can speculate.  In my paper titled, Can Tourism Change Its Operating Model: The Necessity and Inevitability, obtainable on request from theconscioushost@gmail.com . I explore its features in more detail. All we can do here is outline some key characteristics:

1. In the old model, the starting point is the Product, an object that is assembled, packaged, produced and priced according to the rules of manufacturing. In the new model, the starting point is a Place that is recognized as qualitatively unique and therefore scarce. While products become commodities and lose value as they become more alike, “Places” that are celebrated for their unique geography, history and culture, gain value and are acknowledged as the primary motivator of travel.
2. In the old model, guest and hosts act in an adversarial role, playing an “I win-you lose” game in which each party tries to win at the cost of the other. In the new model, that puts relationship building ahead of transactions, guest and host co-create experiences of meaning, benefit and value to both parties.
3. In the old model, Hosts are producers who focus on the attributes of their product in order to persuade a target market to purchase. In the new model, hosts orchestrate unique experiences of places that are perceived of value and as transformative by guests.  Guest are attracted to a host for his or her personal, subjective qualities  – what they value; their sense of purpose; contribution to community; their integrity and authenticity over and above the physical artefacts and amenities
4. In the old model, Producers PUSHED their products in front of potential buyers through various promotional techniques and, when that failed, they dropped their prices. The cost cutting methods deployed to maintain profit margins (standardisation, homogenisation and automation) further devalued the experience and guest satisfaction while suggesting that cheap travel was a right. In the new model, producers focus on protecting, rejuvenating and expressing the elements of a place that make it unique, attractive and worth paying for. Hosts who can communicate a strong signal about their values and their appreciation of the uniqueness of their place and corporate culture, PULL towards them customers whose values are aligned with theirs.
5. In the old model, producers assumed that their first priority was to maximise profit for their shareholders. In the new model, producers understand that profit is an outcome that occurs when the enterprise has a higher purpose and when it works to generate net benefit for all its stakeholders (guests, employees, suppliers, and the host community). In the old model, tourism entrepreneurs were followers – applying models and values developed in manufacturing. In the new model. They will be active change agents in their communities and on the forefront of innovation.

This post is s summary of the content presented on the Conscious Travel web site and, more specifically of a discussion paper titled Can Tourism Change Its Operating Model: The Necessity and Inevitability obtainable upon request from theconscioushost@gmail.com. Further relevant references includes:

Rocky Year Ahead for Tourism – by Owen Hembry, NZ Herald 23Jan, 2012

UK Travel Firms must Radically Change Business Models to Survive 2012 – ETN Global Travel Industry News, 28 Dec 2011

The author welcomes all comments and contributions to the concept!

Most problems are relative to property management and issues arising from essentially what is a lack of professional property management policy and/or implemented house rules that set the standard of conduct relative to that property. I respect a lot of holiday home owners don’t want to be property managers but ultimately find themselves as owners of the property having to deal with and resolve short term tenancy issues.

As an owner of several holiday homes i don’t get involved in property management issues anymore and that’s because as i have a property manager in each region with a specific set of house rules to hand out to each person upon check in, these are also laminated on the wall in each significant entertaining area to ensure even visiting guests cannot escape from reading them.

Click here for an unedited version of my house rules that have proven to work! I suggest any home owners looking for inspiration about what needs to be written and included in their house rules reads the PDF.

Here are my top reasons you should give free Wi-Fi at your hospitality or tourism business;

• A recent survey by Hotels.com reported that free Wi-Fi is a must when choosing a hotel room and that it is now the primary in-room and hotel perk that they will base their decision around.
• 31% of those surveyed by hotels.com said they expect free Wi-Fi in a hotel now.
• People are more likely to mention and talk about your business on social media if they are given the opportunity to connect easily with free Wi-Fi.
• You’ll encourage roaming sales people to use your cafe or bar for meetings with people that live locally and will probably come back.
• Everybody knows how inexpensive internet is, by charging your customers; they know it’s just another way for you to make more money on top of their coffee.
• It can encourage people to stay in your cafe or restaurant for longer & spend more money.
• If you don’t, you’ll be put to shame by the Canyons Resort in Utah in the US, who have managed to offer free Wi-Fi from Canyon to Canyon covering its entire hotel, meeting space and ski fields!
• You’ll also be behind this little town in rural Otago that offers free Wi-Fi throughout the whole main street. (It works; I used to drive straight through!)
• By adding a landing page you’ll encourage more people to Like your brand on Facebook, Follow you on Twitter or check-in on FourSquare.
• The technology to set up a secure free Wi-Fi spot is now very affordable & the ongoing costs minimal.
• You’ll actively encourage new customers.
• If they can run to the cost of offering free Wi-Fi on buses and planes, why can’t you?
• You stop the complaints from people who expect it.
• Giving something for free will make you feel good inside.
• Most importantly, because your clients wants it!

If you oversee the website of an RTO or DMO why not try adding ‘places you can access free Wi-Fi’ to your home page. It will be great for your visitors and a compelling incentive for your operators to start offering it!

Do you offer free Wi-Fi at your business? Do you plan to during 2012?
Do you run a travel site? Do you let people filter by properties that offer free Wi-Fi?
Do you look for places with free Wi-Fi as a consumer? Would you like to see more places offer free WiFi?

I’d love to hear your thoughts as a business operator and as a consumer.

As always, if you enjoyed the blog post then please share it on Twitter and let other people have their say too!

Business gurus are climbing over each other to be the first or the loudest to refute Milton Friedman’s assertion that the purpose of business is exclusively to make a profit.

So let me add my prediction to the thousands that will litter the digitized airwaves over the next few months:

2012 will be the year the profit cart will be moved back behind the purpose horse and capitalism, as we knew it, will experience a profound makeover. 

The current prophets of this emerging vision vary from seasoned corporate veterans such as Bill Gates, Tex Gunning of Unilever, John Mackey of Whole Foods (founder of the Conscious Capital Institute) and Joe Stengel (former CEO of  Proctor & Gamble & author of Grow) to perennial entrepreneurs like Richard Branson (author of Screw Business as Usual); upstart academics like Umair Haque (author of Betterness and the New Capitalist Manifesto)  and consultants/thinkers such as Fred Kofman, (Conscious Capitalism); Richard Barrett (The New Leadership Paradigm) and Steve Denning (Radical Management)

The names they have independently applied to describe this emergent form of capitalism also vary from Capitalism 2.0; Conscious Capitalism; Good Capitalism; Creative Capitalism, New Capitalism, Caring Capitalism and, thanks to Sir Richard, Capitalism 24092.

Despite the diversity of the pundits’ pedigree and their use of nomenclature, the message is the same and has three elements:

• doing good is good for business and business is the only global institution whose people can make things better for all of us; and

• conducting business as usual will only produce more of the same problems that challenge humanity today.

• The enterprises that differentiate themselves by “making a difference” will enjoy higher brand equity and profitability than those focused primarily on profit.

Like many good yet revolutionary concepts, those underpinning Conscious Capitalism are not as young as the current spate of authors might have you believe. It’s important to recognize that these authors stand on the shoulders of giants whose names are not as familiar to contemporary audiences but whose thinking created the compost for the current flowering. My source of inspiration in the 1980s were Willis Harman, founder of the World Business Academy and John Renesch who first coined the phrase “conscious capitalism” in 1990 as Editor-in-Chief of New Leaders Press.  Sadly Willis passed away in 1997 unable to witness the revolution taking place now but one of his last interviews shows the clarity and prescience of this thinking. John Renesh is fortunately still very creative and his latest book, The Great Growing Up,  should be included in this anthology.

This is the reason why we’ve brought this debate to tourism through an initiative called Conscious Travel. We’re inviting members of one of the world’s most pervasive industries to stop, re-think and re-make how and why they do tourism. We’re asking them to “wake up” to the unexamined assumptions that have guided their behaviour;  to “grow up” and take more responsibility for all the stakeholders affected by their activities and to “step up” and join the pioneers listed above listed above.

Conscious Travel is a movement, a community and an e-learning platform designed to stimulate and nourish the capacity of tourism entrepreneurs to flourish in new market circumstances. For more information, review www.conscioustourism.wordpress.com or contact founder, Anna Pollock at theconscioushost@gmail.com

2012 is the fourth year for Responsible Tourism Week and we expect the conversations to take a great leap forward thanks to inspired participation and Planeta.com’s 12th year of online conferencing.

Join us! Responsible tourism is free and with Responsible Tourism Week, there’s no jet lag! It’s a great opportunity to learn about new initiatives and it’s an even better venue for networking — collaborating with old friends and colleagues and making new contacts.

Simply put, this online unconference is an excellent way to broaden and deepen our dialogue about sustainable practice and tourism. Responsible Tourism Week encourages participants to articulate their core values and the way they put noble ideas into practice. We spotlight living, breathing examples of responsible tourism. Here is an opportunity to introduce new events, tours and research projects as well as an avenue to summarize the outcomes from recent events. Yes, it’s a high-tech, but we also promote lo-fi media, including the foamboard and social events including carrotmobs, green drinks and photo safaris.

One of the key objectives of Responsible Tourism Week is to create incentives for continuity. We would really like to hear summaries from recent tourism conferences and previews of upcoming events that touch upon the core values of responsible tourism. Another key objective is to strengthen relationships with existing contacts and make new friends!

You can start the preparations now by documenting the stories you’d like to share and by registering on the social media channels you’d like to master in 2012. Share examples of responsible tourism that you have personally experienced. Be generous. Talk about other people’s work that you respect.

We will highlight the most interesting tweets on Twitter, photos on Flickr, videos on YouTube and recommended blogs and wikis. Keep an eye on this blog for further updates!  Your comments, questions, retweets and likes are most appreciated.

Kind regards, Ron Mader

Tourism is system of three elements: Places, Guests and Hosts.  As such, it’s all about PEOPLE. If people change their values and their perception of how the world works, then everything else changes.

There are multiple forces shaking up the tourism system:

1. The key human actors in the system are shifting not only their values but their core understanding of how the world works
2. The industrial model on which tourism is based is collapsing. As it matures, it produces diminishing net returns to all participants, and relies on volume growth to compensate for yield declines.  As visitor volume increases, so do the costs associated with resource depletion, pollution and wealth concentration.
3. External pressures will require the tourism economy to pay significantly more for services that hitherto have been free or relatively cheap. These cost increases will occur when reduced incomes and higher demand volatility are already compromising the resilience and profitability of existing businesses.

Survival and prosperity depend not just on becoming green but waking up to a whole new way of doing business that can, in part, be summarized as follows:

Practitioners of the new, ecological model start with a higher sense of Purpose. They know that profit follows purpose – a commitment to use the business to make the world a better place. Instead of discounting their primary asset – the Place – they focus on protecting, expressing and celebrating its unique Personality to sustain and increase its value to guests.  The passion of all hosts (employees, suppliers, residents), combines with a clear sense of Purpose to PULL in (attract) the kind of guest who will most value what the provider has to offer.

Unless tourism enterprises embrace the new model they will continue to see their profit margins shrink; their resilience to external shocks weaken; and their viability diminish. Tourism entrepreneurs and their communities need to assume responsibility for changing and cannot assume that traditional institutions or agencies can supply fixes.

Conscious Travel is building an e-learning platform and on and offline communities designed to stimulate and nourish the capacity of tourism entrepreneurs – the 99% – to flourish in new market circumstances.

The goal is to build an environmentally sustainable, socially just and spiritually fulfilling form of tourism that generates real net benefits to all stakeholders in the tourism system: guests, employees, investors, suppliers and the host community.

Unfortunately as well all know, crisis situations and emergency events do happen – we tend to think it won’t happen to us, but I have recently gone through an experience while at work that I doubt anyone can be 100% prepared for – certainly in my case it was a shocking situation that resulted in the loss of life of a fellow employee with intense media interest from TV, radio and print.

I hope this never happens to you or your business…but if it does you need to have a plan on how to deal with the media interest. As a small business it wasn’t something we had discussed and didn’t have a plan for but fortunately a media expert, who happened to be a regular customer of our business, was in touch with us as soon as he heard the news to see if his help would be needed – and by god yes it was needed, very much appreciated and ultimately the best thing we could have done on the day.

Media are of course very apologetic about contacting you during a tragic situation but they are certainly like a dog with a bone – they don’t tend to give up easily until they get what the need from you, and because news reporting is a very competitive environment if they don’t get the information from you then they will look to other sources that you may or may not be happy with and may or may not be accurate…so…I learnt some very valuable lessons on the few days that followed this event which I want to share.

Have a media/PR consultant with you as soon as possible

Here are some reasons why:

• Unlike you, they will be unemotional and offer clear strategic thinking
• They will have valuable experience of dealing with media and knowledge of individual media personalities
• They can advise on what you should or shouldn’t say and who is best to deal with
• They can prepare media statements and control media liaison
• They can filter the media and act as the first point of contact to reduce what the key company spokesperson has to manage

Media will publish the news whether you like it or not so  “No comment” won’t necessarily cut it

It was certainly our first instinct not to comment to media as the event unfolded but it became apparent pretty quickly that wasn’t necessarily a good strategy…we certainly had nothing to hide and wanted to ensure inaccurate or irrelevant information wasn’t published.  So it’s better to be as open as possible with media offering prepared media statements so they publish information that is accurate and from you as the source. This can make a significant difference on how the event impacts your business reputation in the long run.

Social Media Tools Are a Vital Communication Tool

Communicating via your social media tools such as your business Blog, Facebook and Twitter pages will be a key part of your strategy during this time as an effective and instant method to get media statements and information out there easily. We also found it a great way for others to communicate with us in an unobtrusive way as a form of support.

Who to Contact?

Overall, you may not need to employ a regular media/PR consultant for your business but at least have knowledge of who you might contact if you need to and get in touch to form that relationship. From experience, I can confidently recommend Peter Heath from Text Write as an expert is Crisis Management – Many Thanks Peter for your valuable support of Salt Air.

This article was originally published here by Michelle Ackers

It has struck me how few business posts there has been on Twitter in the past couple of days and in the week leading up to Christmas. In many ways I’m sure we’d all expect to not see many truly corporate businesses tweeting just now, however I’m surprised to see the complete silence of many of New Zealand’s biggest and usually most active Tweeting companies.

It seems strange to me that a major bank for instance, with its full financial power, would let their Twitter and Facebook accounts stay silent for days – presumably because their Social Media Manager is on holiday! Surely these major companies understand this is a time social networks are busier with so many people enjoying leisure time; not to mention when many want to be able to ask questions about opening hours etc.

Perhaps what has surprised me more than these major companies however is the lack of engagement from businesses that are notably busier at this time of year – retailers, hospitality and tourism businesses. It is a time of year when many of our local audiences are at a loose end, travelling domestically or even actively looking for something to get out and do. As a pro-active tourism operator you could be reaping the reward by joining the conversation and flying the flag for your business.

This leads me back to a point I’m sure I’ve said before. If the reason you’re not posting on social media is because your Marketing Manager is on holiday, your social media strategy is wrong. It is important to get your wider operations team involved in posting to social media to give diversity to your message and tone, as well as to keep it continuous and ‘real.’ Take this opportunity to buy your business a Christmas present in the form of a smart phone or tablet and encourage your team to share engaging encounters whilst they work – whether it be a photo of a dish being plated up in your cafe, a short video of your latest tour group leaving or simply your special offering of the day. By using this kind of technology you can keep the time it takes to a minimum and avoid team members having to leave the operation.

It is important to remember to distinguish between who is posting when there are multiple users, do this by simply using an upward arrow and the persons initials like this ^JH

Whilst the fruits good for the picking, why not give it a go and try Tweeting/Facebooking when you maybe wouldn’t normally – companies engaging outside of standard business hours often get better results!

When in Auckland a few weeks ago, it was interesting to have met with Kevin Francis, the new CEO at Jasons Travel Media and talk a little bit about their online plans, including the recently launched iPhone app; prompted by a 100% increase in visits to their site from a mobile device in the past year, most of which were from iPhones.

Alongside the functionality that users have come to expect like geo-location, maps and reviews, the new app has some nifty features including the ability to register and log-in using Facebook (allowing for quicker processing) and perhaps most impressive the ability to book directly from the app through a secure encrypted connection. A service that few, if any, New Zealand based companies have yet to release.
Whilst the application was launched a few weeks ago, it seems that this week ‘all systems are go’ at Jasons, in an all out effort to start encouraging its use. Alongside new signage with QR codes on Jasons brochure stands nationwide, from tomorrow all web traffic from an iPhone will be welcomed by encouragement to download the new app for better usability.

The application will certainly be of use to the growing number of visitors travelling with mobile devices, but what about the all important question of how much is it going to cost Jasons advertisers? I was happy to hear that Jasons have chosen not to charge advertisers any more for being listed on the app. A decision I welcome, believing that the cost in developing this type of resource is part of their business development, not a cost to be passed directly on to operators, as other well-known tourism promotion companies continue to do.

It is positive to see Jasons, who may have traditionally been associated with print, offering a range of on and offline solutions including mobile applications; to ensure it continues to service the needs of its advertisers and respond to the ever changing expectations of its end-users.

If you’re not already doing so, I’d recommend downloading apps that you are listed on, to familiarise yourself with what your customers are experiencing and to ensure you fully appreciate the ever-changing functionality available on these devices.

You can find the Jasons App by visiting the App Store from your iPhone or iPad.

They’ve been saying it was the year of mobile for a decade; social media is well and truly entrenched, so what’s new?

What changes do we predict might be normal by next Christmas?
To find out, Fossick’s Genevieve Atkinson decided to ask a few movers and shakers what they predict for the coming year.

James Hacon; Speaker, Writer & Entrepreneur in Tourism & Hospitality

Growth of Last Minute Bookings
When coupling the lowering of rates on ‘distressed inventory’ and the ease for travellers to book when on the road with mobile technology, I believe we will see further increases in last minute bookings. In fact with many of the largest OTA’s not supporting destination marketing and the continued undercutting of long-lead trade generated sales, I would suggest that as an industry we are actively encouraging our guests to leave booking their accommodation until the last minute. So don’t be surprised when you see an increase of walk-ins and a decrease in forward bookings.

Back to good old fashioned values
In a society where so many of us are constantly plugged in to technology, so much of our communication is through email and all too often we are just another number. I believe that we will start to see a further turn towards people wanting ‘real experiences,’ personalised service and attention. I believe the time is done for customers who are forced to choose between price and quality, our customers are expecting good service regardless of the price they pay!

Boycotting of establishments not offering free Wi-Fi
This is more of a hope that a prediction. I know many of my friends are no longer staying in hotels or frequenting cafes that don’t offer free Wi-Fi. Let’s hope those charging exorbitant prices for internet bring themselves into the 21st Century and realise that charging for internet is like charging to have a television or telephone in your room!

The growth of Google+ and slow in growth for Facebook
I don’t know whether you’ve noticed, but my friends don’t seem to be nearly as active as they once were on Facebook. Don’t get me wrong, I am certainly not predicting the downfall of Facebook – in fact I think it will continue to have market dominance. I would however be on the watch out for Google+ that has been slowly creeping up in popularity and infiltrating our email accounts one friend at a time. With people being more selective as to which social platforms they spend their time, they will also become more selective on who they will be engaging with. We’ll see smart companies, that understand social media is all about relationships and being social, continue to see great results, with companies seeing it as another PR platform fail dismally.

Veronica Nobbs;  Founder  Get a room – same day hotel bookings.

The growth of location-based services within the activity space.
Like many other sectors the activity industry continues to struggle. Yes coupon sites do provide another channel, however location based last-second ‘deals’ will prove to be more sustainable.

Smaller players getting better at social media
Smaller travel players looking to place smarter strategies around their use of social media, looking to add value to their customers as opposed to simply pushing advertising to them. A great deal of business still do social media terribly, and many in 2012 will look to reevaluate their approach.

Rise of booking travel on the go
Consumer behaviour within the travel space will continue to change with the continued rise of booking travel on the go, with the likes of Hotels.com and Expedia already experiencing notable growth in the mobile space. As a result more and more companies will seek to enter the space as well as established players introducing additional products.

Tony Marks;  Chairman Rotorua Tourism

Year of the Chinese Travel
Looking back from say 2016, 2012 will be seen as the year when the Chinese dominance of inbound tourism to Australia and New Zealand really started. Businesses will either have to adapt rapidly or see their market share of all inbound decline precipitously. Alternatively, we will have the rise of businesses who will unashamedly focus on the dwindling but yield positive USA or European travel

The growth of personal travel managers will accelerate
While some will operate from travel agencies, most will set up independent businesses and use an affiliated agency buying power. They will cater for an aging market prepared to do some research but really wanting someone who genuinely cares about their travel needs. The key issue will be getting sufficiently close to your customer to be able to not ask them the cliched ” where do you want to go ” but to supply great answers to the more critical ” why do you want to go ” ?

Airlines will become even more focused on ancillary revenue
They will continue to be vertically integrated , web based and seek to wrap up as much of the holiday dollar as possible – bit like the old charter operations in the UK. Being squeezed on a $ 2300 fare to London or a $ 200 fare across the ditch will be increasingly unattractive.

Michelle Ackers; New Zealand Tourism Industry Blog

2012 Will Follow Similar Trends as 2010/11

In general I think 2012 will see some keys trends for the NZ tourism industry continue, namely:

• Strengthening of the China and India inbound markets to New Zealand due to the increased marketing presence in these markets by Tourism New Zealand and various airlines’ commitment to increased flight schedules
• Continuing decreases from UK/Europe travellers visiting New Zealand. We can blame the state of their economies which are still in dire straits with exchange rates not in their favour for travel outside of their borders; increased British departure tax; and possible changes to the Air New Zealand flights from London…
• Continued growth of the cruise ship market for visitors to New Zealand. Cruise ship packages are cleverly marketed offering value for money in tough times. People love the inclusive food offer and the ease of planning a cruise holiday. Australians in particular are lapping this up – evens kiwis are jumping onboard in Sydney or Auckland to enjoy short cruise breaks.
• Slow forward bookings. This is still a problem for most tourism businesses, airlines, wholesalers, inbound tour operators and agents…people are just waiting to book anything until closer to their travel dates, making it a nervous wait until peak season hits.

Online Mobile Marketing in Tourism will Hit its Straps
Large tourism organizations have already become adept and clever with the use of mobile technology – smart phones, apps, social media etc but I think 2012 will see more of this coming from smaller businesses and organizations as they become accustomed to the technology and how to use it effectively.

Genevieve Atkinson;  Founder of Fossick. The locals guide to where to stay in Australia, NZ & the South Pacific.

Reviews will cross the divide into normal not new
For many properties reviews are still annoying, like smart phones or social networks, but as the social networks have crossed the line this year. I think the need and desire for guest reviews will cross the line in 2012.

The rise of permission advertising
We have permission marketing, but I think the advertising industry needs to be disrupted. Group buying sites were the tip of ice-berg and highlight the issue the most businesses today are struggling for consumer attention. My predication is that we have attention around the wrong way and we will see the beginning of self -selected advertising.

QR codes getting massive
Everyone else will say mobile will be huge, but my predication is that QR codes will help bypass the need for apps for everything and create ways for consumers to quickly engage with websites. However the websites needs to be more mobile friendly.

Disagree, have your own predication? please leave a comment.

In the past few weeks I have been trawling the web to find attraction and restaurant opening hours over the festive period. I’ve been surprised at the number of businesses that have no information about their opening hours or offerings over the Christmas season present online.

Here in Dunedin for instance, we have two cruise-ships in port on Christmas Day prompting many of our tourism operators to open their doors, yet many have not listed this information on there website. Not only are these operators potentially losing out on the business of the cruise-ship passengers they are opening for, but may also be losing out on the patronage of other tourists or even locals like us, who would be keen to get out of the house for a few hours.

As a rule of thumb, as you get close to a public holiday or special event, be sure to update your website to include all the relevant information. I would suggest to do this in a prominent place on your site and perhaps in a little more detail within a blog post. As well as being a resource for those looking for it, it is likely to optimise your website and drive those searching for these special events to you.

Be sure not to just think about your own website, if you have listings on other prominent sites, it can only help by adding this information to these too!

If like me, you’re a Twitter addict, you’ll probably not have missed the amazing moments that guests started to tweet live from the event when Air New Zealand gifted each and every one of them a return ticket to Wellington! For those of you that haven’t seen it, check the Air New Zealand video out here:

For more information about the campaign, check out the WellingtonNZ page.

Watching this video reminded my of other cool tourism case study videos I’ve seen recently. Here are a few that I think can provide some ideas & inspiration- enjoy!

If you know of any others be sure to post them here in the comments!

As per my suggestion of building a content map in my workshop, find a copy of the base I use below. I find using a content map will help you to brainstorm and document creative themes for engaging content on your social media channels. I would suggest using as many of your team as possible to build the map within a workshop style environment, this way everyone feels that they have a say and trust me, you’ll get heaps of great ideas!

Click the image to download a larger version

I’ve worked with a number of businesses of all sizes to help build their social media strategy and used this technique to great effect. Feel free to make use of the idea and base ideas on this map – I’d recommend using a mind-mapping piece of software for the best end result.

Feel free to leave any comments or questions. I look forward to hearing your results.  If you’re looking for someone to help with your strategy or facilitate your content development workshop, feel free to get in touch.

With the majority of the attendees and speakers being US based, it must be said that most of the statistics are relating to the US market, although fundamental movement to mobile devices is a global trend.

I believe this technological shift is the biggest change to the tourism industry that we have seen since the introduction of online travel sites. For the first time ever, travellers can easily book accommodation during their trip, access tourist information from their car and perhaps most eye opening, check reviews about your business whilst standing outside!

Believe me, it happens! In fact throughout my trip to the US our iPad hardly got a rest (and it wasn’t through me tweeting, for a change) my partner was regularly checking Yelp for restaurant reviews, whilst I made the most of the FourSquare specials and booked accommodation for our next destination – at amazing online rates!

We are certainly not alone, throughout the Rugby World Cup it was interesting to see the constant flow of tweets from overseas visitors about Dunedin and so many people wandering the Octagon iPad’s in hand.

Recent US tourism research undertaken by Destination Analysts showed that 26.4% of leisure travellers are using mobile internet to access travel information. If, like me, you thought people were only using mobile internet during their travels, think again, of those using mobile internet, 80.5% were used it during thier trip, but a massive 65.8% used their mobile device to research their trip before departing!

Check-out some of the travellers were doing on their mobile device;
67.7%    Finding restaurant information
64.7%    Check the weather
56.0%    Look at maps
45.1%    Finding hotel information
36.1%    Finding sightseeing or attraction information
9.4%      Buy tickets (to an event, festival, museum etc.)

When you add to this that mobile internet access with surpass PC by 2015, the big question is…what does this mean? Here are my thoughts…

• If you don’t have a mobile site, you need one!
• If you have flash on your site, change it, it doesn’t show up on an iPad (which makes up 97% of tablet traffic) or the iPhone (which could make up to 13% of global smart phone market.)
• Ensure your booking engine and online payment solution is suitable for use on mobile devices, plus think about providing an option where the traveller doesn’t need to print a ticket or confirmation.
• Ensure that you are encouraging reviews on the major mobile based review sites.
• Register and regularly update your business profile on all geo-location and map services, likes Google Maps & FourSquare.
• Consider how easy it is for your clients to access your mobile site from your advertising mediums, perhaps think about QR codes.

An Overview

Before going any further, I must first say what a truly great event this was. It was brilliantly organised by Jake Steinman, Sofia Williamson and team at NAJ, offering a well balanced mix of inspiring key notes addresses, workshops in three tracks and the much needed opportunity to get one-on-one and round table time with speakers.

Perhaps most impressive was the number of high calibre speakers, from a range of companies including TripAdvisor, Facebook, Google, Expedia, Travel Zoo, Linkedin along with some of the major US based destination marketing agencies.

The stand out difference between this and other conferences I’ve attended, being that, speakers were not there to tout for business, nor to sell their product – instead to provide expert support and guidance as industry leaders.

If you get the opportunity to attend next year or in the future, I would most certainly recommend it.

Google Trip

The first day of the conference was a trip to Mountain View and the global Headquarters of Google and home of the Google Travel team.

The opportunity for a tour of the Googleplex was exciting enough, giving an insight into what it’s like to work for this corporate giant. With staff benefits including, but not limited to free meals, free home internet, shared company cars, swimming pools, flexible working hours, transport to and from San Francisco, onsite doctors and hairdressers, to name but a few, the conversation in the group certainly turned to where to email your application! Saying that, when you consider that on those buses to and from work, free wireless internet is provided for your company laptop and Android, it does make you wonder what kind of work-life balance Google employees really enjoy.

Within the tour we were also treated to a look at a super-size Android cell-phone and an awesome 360 Google Earth experience, just a few of the toys on display! Truly – another world.

After enjoying a Google-style lunch, with a choice of 6 restaurants (who says there’s no such thing as a free lunch), we settled for a much anticipated presentation by the Google Travel team. Here are the main points that I took away;

Don’t underestimate the power of search

It’s important to remember that search is still the number one travel planning resource for leisure travellers.  One stand out piece of advice was to target travellers with tailored messaging as they research sending them to specific pages within your site rather than a blanket approach with everyone landing on your homepage.

Travellers aren’t just visiting your website

When considering that travel bookers are visiting an average of 17.4 travel-related sites across the internet within an average of 8.1 research sessions as they plan a trip, it is important that you think beyond your own website. It is vital to build an expansive online brand for your businesses, utilising third party and social media sites.  Throughout the summit, many people questioned the long-term effectiveness of individual operator websites beyond being a reference point.

Remarketing

The idea of being able to re-target travel bookers who have already visited your website was something I hadn’t heard of before, but really excited me. Just consider that someone had visited your website in the early stages of their travel, but hadn’t booked – wouldn’t it be great if you could target them again, particularly as they’ve already shown an interest in your product. With Google Display advertising you can! We were told by putting certain coding in your website, Google can use their display network to ensure that your message is re-delivered in both text and banner format.

YouTube

Google have the world of search a little sown-up by all accounts. Owning both the world’s largest search engine (Google) and second largest. (YouTube) A massive 89% of personal travellers watch online video content when researching their upcoming trip. If you aren’t present, you need to be. A good start is to create a social hub with a free enhanced YouTube brand channel.  Until this visit I had never considered YouTube advertising, but by all accounts it can be good value, often coming in a lot cheaper than other major social media sites and search engines. Take a look at the YouTube Insights functionality and advertising opportunities. It looks like few destinations in New Zealand have paid results…perhaps a lost opportunity?!?

Typically, tourists have been travelling around FIT, with many in campervans, deciding on where to stay and what to do when they arrive in each town.  Our pre-RWC poll showed a skew towards poor forward bookings – however is this actually what has happened so far?

We’d love to have your vote on the poll below in regard to your September bookings received whether you are an activity or accommodation business. We will conduct a poll again at the end of the RWC in late October to get another overview.

The concept of being on call directly to guests 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, was perhaps the area that I hadn’t thought would be so intrusive, particularly considering I’ve always been on call. It struck me half way through my ‘motelier’ experience, that the main difference was that when I was called in my positions at hotels, it was almost always a member of staff ringing – not the guests themselves. I couldn’t help but feel that the guests were waiting for me sit down before coming to ring the reception bell, and sod’s law, it was always the best bit of the film I was watching or right in the middle of dinner. I quickly discovered why my friends had MySky!

The diversity of work also caught me off guard. Whilst I was a General Manager of a hotel, I felt that I was a jack of all trades, helping to jump in the restaurant when needed, covering reception or even stripping beds if need be. What I had never really considered was that other than the food and beverage areas, the diversity of skills and duties was very similar. The only difference being, where in a hotel you have a number of team members to fulfill these roles, in a motel, bluntly, you don’t.

Another significant difference that really struck me was how lonely you can feel. In a hotel environment, there’s always someone around, whether it be a guest or another member of the team. In fact, one of the things that I miss most about working within a hotel is the social aspect of the work environment and role. Other than checking in, perhaps borrowing a DVD or seeking advice of where to visit, I hardly saw the motel guests at all!

After a couple of years of regularly conversing with a number of friends who own motels, as well as providing consultancy to a few too, here are a couple of my top tips to those running a motel style accommodation business;

• Look into getting a reservation system and channel manager, if you’ve not already got one. With all the things you’ve already got to do, don’t be wasting your time manually checking in to Wotif every time you sell a room. For a very little outlay each month with companies like Seekom, ResBook or Strait PMS, you could be saving yourself a lot of work!
• Take a day off. Make sure you find someone who can give you a day off every week or a short break regularly. With the amount of hours you work and the constant pressure of being ‘on-call,’ it’s important you give yourself a break. Not just for your sake, but for your guests too – the last thing anyone wants is a tired and grumpy host when on holiday!

I’ve stayed in a number of motels across New Zealand and received amazing service from friendly moteliers, through to the rudest from some of the most un-friendliest. I think you’ve got to be someone quite special to pull of being a good motelier. After just a few days in the shoes of a motelier, I can assure you, it’s really not my calling!

There were 4 topics that are worth revisiting.

1. Flash sites or daily deals.

Nothing seems to polarise opinion like the daily deals and travel, so I really enjoyed this debate. Clearly a large number of people don’t believe that the model is relevant or appropriate for travel – especially in regards to margin. Most daily deal sites take a high margin (often 50%) and require a huge discount on top.

Some of the interesting facts …

• the money is made by the top 4 players (none of which had a specific travel focus)
• the specific travel deal sites were struggling to get an ongoing supply of deals. It appeared that this was a sandbox that the major hotel chains were not playing in.
• the number of travel deals sold was increasing (whilst the number of beauty deals diminished).

Note: to a room full of men this appeared entirely logical, “how many facials could you really purchase” to which I mentally calculated that for many women – far more than holidays.

To me the most interesting thing was that the travel sites were playing by traditional travel rules - travel is sold in a particular way and they conformed and worked within that – namely to be able to get a steady supply of deals. In contrast, Spreets came across, not in an arrogant manner, but free from constraints as to how it was done. Their take – it’s a great advertising and sales opportunity – plenty of people willing to play, so take it or leave it. I guess that’s the luxury of having an audience of 2 million a day.

2. Mobile

Fascinating that the mobile discussion was being run by activities and insurance companies, not your traditional OTA’s, but this is where the innovation was. World Nomads, an insurance company, belief was that to be successful in mobile you needed to do something different and appropriate for the medium. So selling insurance services, boring – running a Q and A between all the customers that have bought insurance, interesting.

I thought these guys were right on the money and have been extremely successful. The irony is that this was, and probably still is, the key opportunity for traditional travel agents. Utilizing the community nature of your existing audience.

The other highlighted company was Viator, that sells activities. Again, no point just replicating their website, instead they created a “last minute” activities app, a platform they didn’t have and created in order to run the app.

Both achieved significant success, being featured by apple the holy grail of app release. However it was highlighted that Viator spent millions, both in creation and launch, taking over Youtube across the world.

3. Airlines

For those Kiwis out there Air NZ did a fine job showing up the Aussies in its significant worldwide success in social media. With classic underdog lines like -for a small airline at the bottom of the world – we achieved amazing reach. Which they have. I’m looking forward to the launch of the new Air NZ site, as well as Rico’s interviews with Lindsay Lohan and David Hasslehoff.

Although the parting question raised significant debate. The trick with this widespread reach was did it then convert?. Did it sell more airlines seats? The debate centered back on the age old, if its’ social – are you supposed to actually sell something too ?

We then had a panel of the three major airlines, which was tense and jovial. At one point a member of the audience queried Justin Montgomery, GM Virgin about their recent letter to her, a Qantas frequent flyer, offering to replicate her points status on Virgin, “Was this a blatant stealing of customers? ” – “yes – very blatant”. Right then.

To be honest the Qantas man John Lonergan, either wasn’t willing to fight in this context or seemed out of his depth, as he was remarkably quiet with Virgin and Air NZ dominating the microphone.

Around the lunch table, the debate was how Virgin got their list of Qantas Frequent Flyers.

4. The future of the GDS.

I’ll be upfront, I don’t know a lot about GDS’s, but if you know less than me, it stands for Global Distribution System and there are basically 3 companies that sit as the middleman in the distribution chain of flights and room nights. GDS’s have been significant players, but due to a number of direct to consumer models, aka low cost carriers and large OTA distribution systems, like Expedia – their relevance has been in question.

Martin pushed and probed but each replied with the same pat answers unwilling to fight their cause. Which made them dull and irrelevant.

Regardless of your position, it was apparent that they still made significant sums of money and billions of travel transactions. However in a Traveltech conference, not a single one could point to a clear point of difference amongst the 3 players – particularly in technology innovation.

5. Social Media & Facebook

Thankfully there was not a solid focus on social media, but interestingly as it should be, it was pervasive as part of the marketing mix throughout the talks.

Social is often touted as the free medium, achieving massive consumer word of mouth, reach etc etc for minimum spend. Although the spend might be less compared to traditional mediums like advertising. It was interesting to note of the successful campaigns talked about, social was still a significant cost. Creating video campaigns and hiring agencies is still not cheap. Air NZ and Tourism Victoria have achieved significant success, sure, but they still have reasonable budgets to begin with. For start-ups like myself it becomes far more apparent you still need money to make money – even with social media.

Last but no least – the Traveltech awards for best website – which went to Vroom, Vroom, Vroom, a beautifully functional site for car rental comparison. The criteria for the awards was being an Australian owned and run company. However, Martin has now agreed to include New Zealand companies next year. So watch this space for Fossick next year.

Take the time to listen to all of his presentation taken from the TED “Ideas Worth Spreading” website. The key take out for your business or organisation? “Don’t just manage what you can measure.”

I then put it on snooze for 1 hour and go on to check my emails. I eventually  get involved in some needless crisis which rolls into the weekly Monday company meetings with the various departments to plan the week.

At noon I return to my desk – my task reminder there again blinking at me “Write Blog.”

Why is it that the most important and effective online marketing tool we can all do for our businesses often gets ‘snoozed’ for other tasks that we prioritize as more important?

As a marketing consultant my mantra to our clients is “Blogging is one of the most cost effective ways to increase your SEO – “a blog every other day helps to keep the creditors away.” But advise can be easy to give…and sometimes hard to follow.

And so it dawned on me – I personally struggle to write sometimes because I feel it is necessary to impart some life changing or business empowering idea each blog.  Makes me wonder if this also causes ‘blog paralysis’ for others?

Reality is, most of us don’t have the time to read a long, life altering blog. We really just want to be interrupted and entertained for a moment during our busy lives and hopefully learn a little something along the way. Some small bite of information that is tasty and easy to swallow.

So, here it is – my small, easy to swallow Monday blog message; don’t’ beat yourself up because every one of your blogs does not bring you a slew of new customers, unveil a new idea for getting more bookings or a new way you can reach number one on Goggle.

Just remember and enjoy the 11th commandment – “thou must blog.”

Upon moving to New Zealand I remember pondering as to where the division between hospitality and tourism begins and ends. Thinking back I think these thoughts may have been prompted by having to classify your ‘sector’ on Linkedin. Coming from the UK, I would suggest that as a hotelier or restauranter you would have almost certainly consider yourself part of the hospitality industry; however in New Zealand I would many hoteliers would consider themselves part of the tourism industry.

In the past few weeks, I have again been contemplating the relationship between tourism and hospitality. This time the catalyst for these thoughts has come through my recent participation as a panelist in the Brand and Marketing seminar at The Restaurant and Bar Show. One of the key themes around seminars at the Restaurant and Bar Show was the Rugby World Cup and in particularly how restaurants and bars can make the most out of this fast approaching event. Of course many of the seminars were tailored towards what you can and can’t do in terms of the strict licencing of the RWC brand, ours was more orientated towards ways to promote and market your business as well as using the opportunity for brand awareness.

Upon speaking to Auckland Restauranter and fellow panelist, Luke Dallow, it became clear that both of us wanted to ensure what we delivered gave advice and thoughts around branding and marketing that would flow on beyond RWC 2011. Within the run up to the event, I conversed with a number of restaurant and bar owners. There is a clear distinction between those restaurants in key tourist resorts like Queenstown from those in destinations that rely more heavily on local traffic, such as Dunedin. Those in tourist resorts often seem to heavily promote themselves, whilst I would suggest that many outside of these areas don’t market themselves well, if at all.

Interestingly, for a large number of restaurant and bar owners outside the main tourist hotspots, I see that the Rugby World Cup has simply acted as an awakening, encouraging them to realise the potential in the tourism market. Whilst I understand that not all restaurants will receive a large number of tourists, there are certainly some low cost ways that these businesses can ensure they are, at least, on the radar of passing tourists.

For restaurants and bars who may not have seen themselves as a tourism operator until now, a good starting point is to contact your regional tourism organisation. It is important to know that the set-up of regional tourism organisations differs across New Zealand, with some being membership based, some being funded through your rates and others you may have to pay for services. You can find their details of your regional tourism organisation by following this link.

Here are a few ways that they may be able to help you;

• Connect you with marketing groups
• Advise you about the tourism market in your area.
• List your restaurant or bar to be listed on their website.
• Providing training and updates.
• Adding you to their databases, so you receive updates and information on upcoming opportunities.

What I’ve come to realise is that by putting a label on your sector, sometimes you may be closing doors. By embracing that your business is in the tourism and hospitality industry, you could well be seeing more people through your door! With around 2.5 million tourists visiting New Zealand yearly, the 85,000 visitors for the Rugby World Cup is the tip of the iceberg; don’t let the Rugby World Cup be the be all and end all for your restaurant or bar, use it as the prompt that helped you to realise the potential in international and domestic visitors.

I hope you found this blog post useful and as always please feel free to leave your own experiences or any comments. Make sure you rate the blog so I know whether you found it helpful. If you did – retweet it, to share it with others.

Keep an eye out for the next webinar coming soon…

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

When I say “local searches” I mean searches that include a town or city name in the search for a business type e.g “Taupo Motels”. The impact of this has both positive and negative effects on small businesses. For businesses that fit the location and business type criteria it may mean you now consistently appear on page 1 of the results now. For others that had put a lot of effort into having a well optimised website with strong online marketing it may mean you have slipped down the list onto a lower ranked page.

So if this is now the case, what can you do now to influence your rankings? Here are some tips to get the most out of “local searches” and Google Places:

• Make sure you have a Google Places business listing AND you have claimed it as the business owner so you can edit the content.
• Once you have access to edit your google places listing, make sure you complete all aspects of the content – including an accurate location on the map and choose all 5 category types (e.g for a motel the categories may be: motel, accommodation, motor inn, family accommodation, conference venue). The categories you enter will determine what results your business will appear in so it’s important to make the most of these and pick them wisely. You should have a 100% completed listing, so add your own business photos and YouTube videos too.
• Google Places pulls in content from other websites too – like business content from finda.co.nz or reviews from Tripadvisor, even pricing and booking links from accommodation booking websites. So having a comprehensive online marketing strategy will pay off here too.
• Use the additional free tools on Google Places like the Offer Coupons to help your listing stand out more and provide a mechanism for deals.

You’re probably also wondering, why bother with SEO on my own website now if Google Places results come up first anyway? Well, don’t give up on SEO! It’s still vitally important to rank as highly as possible in organic results and local searches aren’t the only way people will find your website through google (not to mention Google isn’t the only search engine).

For those new to Google Places, this video below is a useful reference for the key areas to cover in the content.

Originally posted on the Adept Marketing blog.

Space is limited.

Reserve your Webinar seat now at:

https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/787900846

Guest Speaker: Genevieve Atkinson, Fossick
Host: James Hacon, Kiwi Dreams

Title: Kiwi Dreams & Tourism Inudstry Blog: Tackling the subject of Review Sites
Date: Thursday, July 14, 2011
Time: 6:30 PM – 7:30 PM NZST
After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

System Requirements
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server
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Required: Mac OS® X 10.5 or newer

We hope to run two webinars a month over a three month period as a trial with an aim of speaking to people that are doing innovative, quirky or news worthy things in the New Zealand tourism scene.

We’ll be giving you an opportunity to leave questions that you’d like asked here on the Tourism Industry Blog a week before each webinar, then you can log-on and listen in or come and find the recordings afterwards here on the blog.

We’re delighted to have a few speakers confirmed, but we’re asking you – who would you like to see us chat to about what they are up to?

Leave us a comment to let us know.

If you are interested in being involved as a speaker then please contact me by emailing james@kiwi-dreams.co.nz

We look forward to seeing your suggestions!

Enter your vote and comments.

The Rugby World Cup Is Not Showing Widespread Benefits

At this stage the RWC has not increased bookings for most of the travel organizations, if anything they are finding that people are avoiding booking a holiday to New Zealand over Sep/Oct because of the perception of highly priced accommodation and no availability.

Effectively only the RWC Official Travel Agents (OTAs) are benefiting from bookings  and only accommodation in key RWC locations are booked out for specific big match dates. For the rest of the tourism industry the normal travel patterns for spring look to have been displaced by rugby supporters, leaving a potentially patchy couple of months for most tourism operators around NZ and even Air New Zealand has indicated their bookings for this period are not more than usual.

If there’s still time to boost bookings then I suggest hotels and other tourism businesses bring their pricing into more sensible levels to give New Zealand a better image and attract a full range of visitors over this period. We are not yet fully booked!

Forward Bookings Slow

Forward bookings in general are weak. A combination of factors including uncertainty after the Christchurch earthquake, exchange rate fluctuations (weak USD and GBP, high AUD) and ongoing global recession recovery seems to be putting people off booking to this part of the world in any hurry, instead they are opting to leave it as late as possible to decide, giving the industry a poor indication of what the next season will be like.

On a positive note, it does seem that the luxury high end market is reasonably strong however, there are still people out there with large budgets for luxury holidays and so this market is remaining steady.

The Rise of the Cruising Market

The Cruise Ship industry are aggressively targeting the middle travel market with competitive packages that are successfully winning business off the group tour and FIT markets. This changes the dynamics of tourism experiences for visitors to NZ and has considerable effect on accommodation and some tourism activity operators. On the whole it’s not a positive trend economically as they simply don’t see as much of New Zealand and don’t spend as much – only regular cruise ship ports benefit but the benefits don’t run much beyond what people can do in a day visit within walking distance of the ship.

Were you at TRENZ this year? Did you make any other observations to add to this article – your input would be appreciated.