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  • New Zealand Open returns to Queenstown

    When the hot Zealand Open returns to Queenstown in early 2014, the year-round South Island resort will play host to the largest golfing event hosted in New Zealand for decades.

    The tournament, a tier one event at the PGA Tour of Australasia, could be held from 27 February to two March at Queenstown’s The Hills Golf Course and Millbrook Resort. It is going to include a singular pro-am format played concurrently with the pro tournament following the rules established for the 2013 NZPGA Championship.

    The purse for the development would be not less than NZD$850,000 (this figure shall be finalised once current stakeholder negotiations were concluded).
    The Southern Lakes region will provide the ideal backdrop for this high profile event, offering visitors world-class facilities, multi award-winning courses, spectacular lake and alpine scenery, and a various range of golfing and non-golfing activity options.

    Iconic golf tournament
    A return to Queenstown is the results of New Zealand Golf (NZ Golf) the PGA of recent Zealand (NZPGA) and Michael Hill Tournaments Limited (MHTL) coming to an agreement at the future structure of major men’s golf tournaments in New Zealand.

    The parties have agreed to pool resources with the purpose of constructing one truly iconic golf tournament.

    Under the agreement, NZ Golf has licenced MHTL to organise and take full responsibility for the recent Zealand Open for an initial period of 3 years.
    In addition, the parties have agreed to continue to stage an annual NZPGA Championship, initially on a smaller scale.

    Paul Fyfe, New Zealand Golf chairman, says here is a tremendous moment for brand spanking new Zealand’s premier golf tournament.

    “The New Zealand Open has a rich and assorted 106-year legacy and we’re taken with the opportunity of the development to flourish in Queenstown,” said Fyfe. “We believe that this will likely be a worldwide first for a countrywide Open Championship to include a professional-am format and it’ll be a thrilling new era for the hot Zealand Open.”

    While the recent format means moving the development from Clearwater Golf Resort, Christchurch, which was home to the past two New Zealand Opens, Fyfe noted that “Christchurch remains a marvelous place to host golf events and we glance forward to working alongside the town to deliver the brand new Zealand Women’s Open and other events in Christchurch for years yet to come.”

    Landmark agreement
    John Hart, the Tournament Chairman on behalf of MHTL, said this was a landmark agreement by all parties involved.

    “We are thrilled that New Zealand Golf and the NZPGA have taken a ‘whole of golf’ approach and feature recognised that New Zealanders can be well served by having one premier golf tournament that may compete on a global scale,” said Hart.

    “Specifically, we acknowledge the NZPGA for his or her foresight in supporting the advance of this Pro-Am event over the last two years, and for accepting that this transfer to the brand new Zealand Open is for the betterment of the sport and the supply of pathways for elite players in New Zealand.”

    Tournament Host Sir Michael Hill – owner of The Hills Golf Club which held the NZ Open in 2007, 2008 and 2010 – says Queenstown has “the ingredients to develop a legendary tournament”.

    Joining The Hills as a co-host for the 2014 New Zealand Open is the Millbrook Resort. Millbrook owner Mr Ishii said: “We are very proud to co-host the brand new Zealand Open and await welcoming visitors from across New Zealand and overseas to monitor some great golfers play at Millbrook.”

    Milestone partnership
    The new tournament format should be played across two courses with a minimum field of 132 professional golfers playing alongside 132 amateur golfers.
    Concurrent to the brand new Zealand Open Championship, a 72-hole strokeplay event, each professional could be paired with an amateur playing two rounds, one at each course, in a best ball format.

    Following the second one round, a qualified and pro-am cut will see the ultimate two rounds played on the Hills.

    The success of the tournament structure on the Hills over the last two years has caused the signing of a milestone partnership agreement between MHTL and the Japanese Golf Tour Organisation (JGTO).

    “The partnership agreement with the JGTO signed following a trip to Japan was a main breakthrough within the internationalisation of the development and towards our vision to create the pre-eminent tournament experience within the Asia Pacific region,” John Hart said.

    “The Japan Tour is among the most lucrative and revered professional tours on this planet and we glance forward to welcoming 15 leading JGTO players to play inside the 2014 NZ Open. We’re delighted that the recent Zealand Open turns into only the third international tournament outside of Japan to have an association with the JGTO.”

    The Japanese golfers will join leading professional golfers from New Zealand, Australia and Asia in Queenstown.

    New Zealand’s premier world ranked player Michael Hendry, who’s a two-time NZPGA Champion on the Hills, is worked up in regards to the prospect of contending the NZ Open on the Hills and Millbrook.

    “Queenstown is a smart venue for pro golf and the players love coming here,” said the 33-year-old from North Harbour, Auckland.

    Growing tournament
    Financially the tournament continues to grow with New Zealand’s Major Events Development Fund indicating they’ll increase their commitment to NZD$900,000 for the 2014 event.

    The existing family of major sponsors for the NZPGA Championship has been retained, and include the Hilton Hotel Queenstown, Michael Hill, Milford Track’s Guided Walks, Rebel Sport, Sky City and Westpac.

    They at the moment are joined by new sponsor and long-time supporter of golf in New Zealand, BMW, which have been the naming rights sponsor for the former two New Zealand Opens on the Clearwater Golf Club in Christchurch.

    Hart said that the continuing support of the key Events Development Fund, Government and the family of sponsors was crucial to the sustainability of this event.
    Festival of golf

    With one or more public initiatives planned off and on the golf course the development is decided to bring a festival of golf to Queenstown.

    “This is tremendous news both for our local people and in addition for golfers and visitors who may have the chance to look at and play top notch golf in a single of probably the most stunning landscapes on earth,” said Queenstown Mayor Vanessa Van Uden.

    “I don’t have any doubt that the communities of the Queenstown Lakes District will join with me in celebrating the return of the recent Zealand Open to Queenstown’s event calendar.”

    Tournament organisers are approaching professional and celebrity players to take part inside the New Zealand Open with further announcements to be made toward the development.

    For past events celebrities playing on the Hills have included Sir Ian Botham, Hollywood actor Don Cheadle, World No.1 Lydia Ko and a great number of sporting icons from Australia, New Zealand and England.

    The scheduling change to February 2014 suggests that no New Zealand Open can be held within the 2013 calendar year. There were three occasions of this within the history of the NZ Open (1990, 1999 and 2008) and all were because of the rescheduling of the tournament dates.

    Plans are underway for the NZPGA Championship in 2014 and there’ll be an extra announcement concerning the dates and the venue of that event inside the coming months.

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  • News: Passengers to profit from £40m investment in South West Trains

    Passengers using South West Trains are to learn from a newly-launched £40 million upgrade of its Class 455 train fleet, that is already the foremost reliable within the UK.

    The upgrade will deliver even greater reliability for services which operate at the Metro area from London Waterloo to Reading, the Hounslow loop and the Shepperton branch. 

    The 91 Class 455 trains, which can be already essentially the most reliable trains within the country, could be fitted with new traction equipment which promises to augment performance and improve reliability even further.
     
    The programme – that allows you to be rolled out over the following three years – involves removing the prevailing DC traction equipment, including the motors, and replacing it with a good more reliable modern AC traction system.

    Regenerative braking is the dominant consider the business case for brand new traction as projections show it’ll return over 20% of traction electricity on inner suburban services and around 10% on main line services. The recent traction units may also be lighter, reducing the quantity of wear at the rail infrastructure.

    An added benefit of the brand new traction units is the increased mileage which might be performed between major servicing and upkeep works, with a purpose to increase from 10,000 to fifteen,000 miles.  This would therefore mean that the category 455 trains will spend less time in Wimbledon depot and more time delivering services for passengers.  an extended term good thing about this maintenance improvement will mean that space may be freed up at Wimbledon depot, enabling South West Trains to watch future capacity developments.

    Over a better 20 months, South West Trains shall be introducing 100 more carriages onto its services to produce capacity for one more 23,000 peak-time passengers daily.  Plans for developing long run capacity enhancements also are underway.

    Christian Roth, Engineering Director for the South West Trains – Network Rail Alliance, said: “Our Class 455 trains are already by far the foremost reliable fleet within the country, however we aren’t complacent and we wish to make certain these excellent results are sustained and improved even further.

    “The new traction motors should help us to enhance the reliability of those trains for our passengers similtaneously delivering environmental benefits throughout the reduced electricity supply.”

    The prototype train would be fitted at Wimbledon depot with the rest of the fleet fitted at Eastleigh depot. The project ought to be finished by Spring 2014.

    The investment is being delivered in partnership with the South West Trains-Network Rail Alliance, Porterbrook and the dep. for Transport.

  • News: lowcostbeds ventures into the center East

    Rated many of the top 10 independent bed banks globally, Swiss – based lowcostbeds, has announced its foray into the center East. Targeting the lucrative inbound and outbound markets from the region, the corporate has officially appointed Discover the arena Marketing as their exclusive representative inside the region and is calling to enroll with prominent regional and international travel agents.

    Mr Paul Riches, Group Director of Sales, lowcostravelgroup, said, “We are confident we’re hitting the best market as both inbound and outbound business within the region is showing a healthy increase. We’re absolutely delighted to be working with Discover the area Marketing. They have got a proven track record in working closely with the travel trade and we don’t have any doubt they’re the correct partner for us to grow our ME business.

    We offer an intensive range of hotels around the globe, coupled with leading technology, so we’re very involved in the prospects the center East market has to present us. As a trade only brand, lowcostbeds boasts an exceptional portfolio of hotels across Europe, the Far East and USA, besides other regions that Middle East outbound travellers traditionally like.”

    Commenting at the appointment, Discover the area CEO, Jenny Adams said, “Discover the arena Marketing is extremely desirous about our strategic partnership with lowcostbeds. We’re desperate to use our vast experience with the local ME travel market to introduce the trade to lowcostbeds. With their vast hotel inventory and engaging commercial terms, lowcostbeds is the proper solution for today’s travel trade.”

    The experienced Discover sales team may be visiting travel agents and attending various trade shows inside the region over the approaching months, providing support and advice on quite a lot of lowcostbeds related issues including agent registration, site navigation tips, commercial terms, product updates, and exclusive travel agent offers. Ms Sarah Marron, Sales Director, Discover the area Marketing, said, “Our strategy with lowcostbeds is to work with the network of regional travel players to ensure that them to give our excellent range of hotels, from leisure resorts to city breaks and from budget to five-star luxury.”

    The team of Directors from lowcostbeds could be present in the course of the Arabian Travel Market (ATM) to satisfy travel trade professionals and agencies, including its Commercial Director Patricia Rossello – Evans.

    Mr Riches added, “ATM is the leading travel and tourism exhibition and offers us the proper opportunity to introduce and position Lowcostbeds. We’re extremely keen on the show and searching forward to being there. Patricia is usually attending, with the intention to meet with the local hoteliers who we’re already working with within the region and to source new hotels, to feature to our GCC product portfolio.’

    Offering an international inventory of 150,000 hotels in over 4000 resorts and cities, lowcostbeds is the proper partner for travel agencies. Mr Riches continued, “Travel agents are always searching for good rates and, increasingly relevant hotel inventory. These days we’re working with over 20,000 travel agencies and native buyers worldwide and our objective is to grow that considerably.”

    The Middle East is likely one of the fastest growing regions on the subject of tourism with outbound travel quadrupling within the last two decades. The area Tourism Organisation estimates that a further two million Arabs will travel abroad inside the next 20 years, taking its total of outbound tourists to 37 million, spending an estimated $20 billion and accounting for two.2% of worldwide outbound travel, an increase of 0.7%.

    Riches concluded, ‘In the following 2 to three years the corporate is calling to grow its annual turnover to over £1bn USD. Today the vast majority of our business is generated from the united kingdom. Our objective now’s to extend our business from other parts of the area, to become a very global hotel provider. Our launch into the center East market is a key component to that strategy.

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  • Accorhotels.com accelerates its development

    Accorhotels.com, the web multi-brand and multi-destination reservation website for Accor hotels, continues its development as a key actor of e-tourism. The web site traffic increased by 25% from 2010 to 2012. Greater than 100 million persons visited the web site last year. 10 online booking are registered every minute.

    Its success is predicated on its adaptations to the local specificities and to customers’ expectations. The web site is supplied in 14 languages and thru 31 geo-localized versions. The gang will launch 2 new languages in 2013: a Turkish and an Arabic version.

    Remy Merckx, Accor Online Sales Director explains the website’s benefits from a customer perspective: “It is the neatest place to book one of the vital Group’s brands. We guarantee the simplest price and the last room availability. Clients book additional services (champagne, express breakfast, late check-out, …) and other activities on site as a result of the pre-stay email.”

  • TNZ launches first mobile app ‘Essential New Zealand’

    Tourism New Zealand (TNZ) has made a major addition to its suite of digital marketing channels, with the launch of its first mobile app – ‘Essential New Zealand’.

    The free app offers advice to travellers at the go in New Zealand, without the necessity for a WiFi connection, encouraging them to do and spot more while within the country.

    Catherine Bates, General Manager Brand and International PR, says; “Essential New Zealand aims to make it easier for visitors to connect to tourism experiences while travelling during the country – notwithstanding where they’re or what they’re doing.

    “People on a ship in the course of Milford Sound or pausing at one of many huts at the Tongariro crossing, can use this app to plot their next activity, in preference to wait until they’re back at a hotel or café.

    “In turn, the app works to persuade their travel decisions by encouraging them to travel more widely, visiting more regions and collaborating in additional paid visitor activities.”

    Designed using robust user research, the free to download app works in tandem with TNZ’s mobile optimised travel website, newzealand.com, to enrich the visitor experience and improve access to information that meets traveller’s needs.

    TNZ’s Visitor Experience Monitor showed that the usage of mobile devices while in New Zealand had increased significantly between 2011 and 2012, with travellers using an iPad or laptop up 44 per cent, and use of a smartphone up 28 per cent.

    “Travellers are actually engaging with digital media previous to and within the travel process. Mobile is an increasingly important channel for operators, with a 1,000 per cent increase in mobile referrals from newzealand.com earlier year. The app is a vital step to support this increased use, ensuring information is instantly available to travellers across a considerable number of digital channels.

    “As a result, the app features over 1,150 activities and travel experiences, highlighting the enduring activities in each region which users can save into their ‘Your Trip’, a longtime tool on newzealand.com.

    “By delivering information users are seeking for while they’re in New Zealand, the app will generate highly qualified referrals to tourism businesses, for operators to transform into bookings.

    The app also includes full contact details and detailed map locations for each activity and regional i-SITE centres, meaning face-to-face support and advice are available easily if required. When accessed online, users are easily connected with comprehensive accommodation and transport booking information on newzealand.com.

    For operators, the app will provide a brand new channel to extend the worth in their free listing on newzealand.com, so that it will remain the important thing planning tool for travellers, connecting them with travel sellers to assist operators grow their tourism business.

    In the past year TNZ has received record traffic to newzealand.com, attracting greater than 13.8 million visits. The amount of traffic from mobile devices increased a staggering 250 per cent.

    And the app is decided to just recuperate for operators and users alike – with new features already planned in future versions.

    “We have already got new features in development for future versions of the app.  Essential New Zealand v1.1 will bring all of the content saved in a consumer’s ‘Your Trip’ on newzealand.com into the app, which will access a much broader range of authoritative travel information once they must .

    TNZ worked in collaboration with Whybin\TBWA’s Digital Arts Network (DAN) to investigate and design the app as portion of its global agency agreement.

    “Our long-standing relationship and the high degree of trust between DAN and TNZ has enabled the curation of Essential New Zealand; a single-minded app which has user research at its core,” says Che Tamahori, Managing Director of DAN.

    “It’s a crucial addition to TNZ’s digital communication channels and we’re delighted with the overall product. User testing has suggested that visitors to New Zealand will adore it too!”