New Zealand tourism and the Internet: adoption, attitudes and keys to effective use

Abstract

Tourism is New Zealand's largest foreign exchange earner. With the tremendous growth of the Internet experienced world wide in recent years offer New Zealand tourist operators many new opportunities for marketing and commercial opportunities. This thesis examines the position of New Zealand tourism industry with regards to the Internet, by conducting surveys and a series of in-depth interviews with operators in the industry. The survey results found that many respondents lack an understanding of what the different Internet technologies can achieve for their organisations. Many had vague plans and goals (if at all) into how these technologies can be used, in other words, while many operators have adopted Internet technologies into their organisations, few have actually integrated them into their businesses' overall strategies. In addition, the survey results found that some Internet users wanted to use Internet technologies to reduce their dependence on intermediaries and position themselves more closely to their customers. The survey results and analyses of the interviews were used to develop a model. The model enables operators to see a representation, via a series of plots, of their (and their competitors') relative positions along a series of dimensions. These include "size of operations", "Internet presence success", 'Internet uses" and "role of intermediaries". These plots highlighted that to achieve their marketing potential, operators must come to understand that communication on the Internet embodies a completely new paradigm. Moreover, tourism operators need to establish credibility and a brand name on the Internet. In this way, the Internet and the WWW will offer many beneficial opportunities for establishing long-term relationships with their customers and enhance tourism opportunities.