Why oh why can’t Xebidy get a contract such as this? Check out the new Tourism Australia website. It is very FLASH - and looks expensive too!

One thing I discovered is that if you navigate on the map to Queensland there is then no navigation to Cairns - a pretty high profile tourism destination I would have thought.

As you will know if you follow my blog posts, I was in Cairns last week so could not attend the Trenz trade show. But nonetheless, I had an intrepid reporter on the scene, Celia Schollum from Stray and Spaceships fame. Here is her report:

We just got back from TRENZ 2007 (Tourism Rendezvous New Zealand) and I have to say that out of the four TRENZ’s I’ve attended it has to have been the best.

This year TRENZ was held in Rotorua for the first time and they certainly put on a show. The theme was ‘Rotorua – birthplace of New Zealand tourism’ with Maori culture and the history of tourism in the area integrated throughout the week. It was great to show more of this side of New Zealand to the overseas visitors. My favourite evening function was at the Blue Baths with art deco surroundings, swimming pool, historic museum and synchronised swimming all rolled together to make a cocktail party with a twist!

There were about 450 exhibitors this year with some very impressive displays of products; as always it was great to catch up with all the operators we work with through the Stray bus and Spaceships. Everyone seemed pretty positive about the industry as a whole, with most having record numbers this summer. There were quite a few new companies exhibiting this year however there was a disappointing lack of innovation or anything truly new or creative. One company that did stand out for making an effort and trying to do something different was Hotel So - it will be interesting to see how they go once their first property opens in Christchurch in September.

It was obvious that there were fewer agents than there has been in the past (which is to be expected with the consolidation of so many agencies and the increase in web direct business); thankfully for Spaceships the lack of quantity was definitely offset by the quality of agents. Word is spreading about Spaceships and its unique features, with many agents saying that they had colleagues who had visited NZ and then on their return had insisted that someone meet with us at TRENZ. Having an actual Spaceship vehicle parked inside for the first time definitely helped to fully explain the concept and quality features and there was very positive feedback overall

The final gala night topped off a great week with a huge party. Music from the Black Seeds, Jordon Luck of the Exponents, and Spacifix got everyone (including lots of the overseas agents) dancing for hours.

I received a Hitwise Report this week from a number of sources (thanks to all) which showed the top travel websites in the US for the month of April 2007. The top website by a long shot was MapQuest, followed by Yahoo! and Google Maps. I don’t if map sites should really count and to this end in my view the top sites were fourth placed Expedia, fifth was Cheap Tickets and then Southwest Airlines.

Sites that could be considered Web 2.0 that ranked highly were Yahoo! Travel at number 10 (seventh if you ignore the three mapping sites) and Trip Advisor at fifteenth.

If measured by the number of page views then Travelocity jumps right up to second place behind Expedia, from seventh based on overall visits.

But, the very top website for the month of April by average session duration is Lonely Planet’s forum site Thorn Tree. To me this shows the importance of peer reviews and advice sharing. The average time spent of the website is just under 30 minutes. Funnily enough the website with the second longest duration is the Sunset Beach bar in St Maarten, Netherlands Antilles. Have a look at this site is great fun and a lesson to us all in how to create and maintain a relationship with you customer both offline and online.

As expected Google kicked butt as the top search engine used for reaching travel industry websites. Finally, amongst other things, the report showed that 43% of users clicked onto another travel industry website straight after being on one. This means users are searching more than one travel site to find what they are looking for.

Remember, these figures were for the US only.

I have had a great week in Cairns capped off with a few beers with Nigel Hobbs, Head Story Teller and Director of Sales and Marketing for AJ Hackett Bungy. It was great hearing about the Macau site, which is now the largest bungy jump in the world at 230 meters! An opportunity in Shanghai sounds exciting also and I am most looking forward to being one of the first to jump in Second Life when it goes live. It was good to hear also that AJ Hackett International now has control of the domain www.ajhackett.com. I had previously done a few things with the guys at Hackett’s and this had been an issue as it was pointed to New Zealand (which is a separate business). It is good to see this is sorted and it should means a lot for their search engine and Internet efforts.

The whole week has thrown up a number of interesting hypothesis that I thought I would share with you. One of the most interesting is the growth of Peter Pans travel shops versus Backpackers World. Most accredit the rapid growth of Peter Pans on their ‘back end’ software; which means they only need one accountant. When a customer makes a purchase the money is immediately split by the ‘back end’ into the suppliers portion and the commission earnings of Peter Pans. Once a customer redeems their travel the supplier can go into an extranet and retrieve their portion without the need to invoice. It is a massive reduction in overheads for both the supplier and Peter Pans. It also means the supplier gets their money earlier, speeding up cash flow - an ongoing problem in the travel industry.

With a faster payment turnaround and their rapid expansion Peter Pans have been able to demand higher commission portions from the suppliers with little resistance. The interesting position now happening in the industry is that Peter Pans have been extending their software to a whole raft of travel desks across Australia, who are signing on to use the software because of it’s ease in use, because it lowers the cost of running these businesses (which have typically had very tight margins), because using the software gives them access to a large number of products that they might not normally have access to and because by using Peter Pans they receive a higher commission than they normally would.

There is a similar occurrence in Cairns with a company called Destination Cairns Marketing (DCM). DCM has over 60+ travel desks in Cairns and Port Douglas with a revenue model that is a real challenge to the industry. DCM partners up with a smaller travel desk that might normally only be on a 10 - 15% commission based on their volume and brings them into the DCM network which is earning as much as 25% commission purely because of the sheer size of their turnover. DCM is then able to split a portion of the increased commission back to the travel desk.

It is often discussed how Peter Pans is beginning to replicate this model nationally. The impact is clear; while suppliers are attempting to drive down commission earnings in the face of increasing costs and demands by the travellers themselves that prices are getting too high, leading agencies such as Peter Pans and DCM are driving up the average commission payments.
From my point of view the interesting point is the relentless growth of both these agencies; Peter Pans in particular is exciting based on it’s software model; as well as their growth into such stepping stone destinations as Thailand I predict these guys will only get bigger and bigger.

Two other businesses seem to be regularly bought up in discussions with all sorts of people this week. The first is Global Gossip, who to summarise sentiment, are the Sleeping Giant of the industry. The Global Gossip Internet Cafes are all well positioned and well run; and since he acquisition of Internet Outpost have really grown in number. They have an exciting network of shops now supplying a service that travellers want. The discussion nearly always centers around what will they do in terms of developing a community through their network. I hope to catch up with Peter Ovenden in the next month when I am Sydney.

The second company is Nomad World Hostels. I heard this before but decided not to make comment, but it appears that most people are now predicting a name change in the near future. Nomads recently took over the Footprints Westend hostel and renamed it The Legend Has it Westend. Is this to be the new brand, or is this still simply gossip?

Thanks to everyone I have met this week and I wish you all well - hope to be back soon.

For those of us behind the times (me in particular) congratulations to Brett and Brad from Calypso on their recent acquisition of Inn the Tropics Hostel in Cairns. Calypso has always one of the most ambient hostels in Australia, if not the world, and I am sure they will turn Inn the Tropics into the same funky environment.

I have been amazingly looked after this week by Brett, Axel (a mate from Stray UK days) and the crew and just wanted to say thank you and good luck with the new hostel.

Today I had the privilege of being one of the first to view the new Cardrona Valley Resort by the guys at Benbrae - and there are two things I have to say: “Wow!” and “How did I miss such an opportunity”.

Unfortunately the website does not do justice to how unique the property is. In essence it is small to medium sized (2 or 3 bedroom) villas well spaced in a sort of a self contained village. At the centre of the village is an awesome heated outdoor pool, massive spa pool, outdoor bar (complete with big screen plasma and surround sounds) and a whopping great outdoor fire. Toward the back of the property are some terraced style villas also, which contain well sized studio appartments on the ground floor and two bedroom apartments on the top.

The interesting thing about the development is the theme or style. Unlike so many developments in the Southern Lakes they have moved away from the straight out stacked stone and exposed rough sawn timber cliche alpine feel and gone for this really unique colonial, almost miners town or wild west feel. All the villas and two bedroom apartments have their own colonial style verandha and there is plenty of room for barbeques or simply too many glasses of rose falling off the balcony on a sunday afternoon looking out at the immense ruggedness of the Cardrona Valley.

I sound like their marketing department!! It has been ages since I have been to Cardrona - a regular haunt 10 years ago; and the first thing to strike me was the sealed road, then the amount of development in the valley and unfortunately, I thought the Cardrona hotel was a bit tired inside.

So, thanks to Dean and Tristan for showing me around, I can’t wait till the opening do! For the rest of us, phase 2 (a large lodge with restaurant, bar, cafe and mini-market) is already sold out, but phase 3 is just about to be released. Get in there fast - as Cardrona is the next big thing and these guys are definitely at the forefront of that.

P.S. This is a cool image - but I didn’t see any chicks in bikinis - or even chicks in ski gear - not independently of simultaneously!