| February's WETA goes to... |
| Abel Tasman Kayaks |
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Our first WETA winner of 2000 successfully achieves what so many smaller tourism operators have failed to do. To create and maintain a professional website that truly reflects the company's high standards.
During our annual one month break from WETA award judging we received a record number of entries. Sadly, many sites, particularly those of smaller tourism operators, failed to meet the WETA criteria. Here's why. We believe the Internet and, in particular, the World Wide Web, create an opportunity for small businesses, whether they be in tourism or any other industry, to compete on a level playing field with larger operators. Barriers to entry are few and, generally, costs are small compared with other forms of marketing. It baffles us therefore, why so many smaller tourism operators opt for free web hosting whereby their sites are hampered by long, difficult to remember and totally irelevant URLs and, as if that wasn't enough, proceed to fill their pages with numerous banner exchange advertisements, third party hit counters and other distracting content. Abel Tasman Kayaks have avoided any such pitfalls. Firstly, they have a unique and relevant domain name "kayaktours.co.nz". (These days, the costs involved with registering and seting up a domain name are so small, all businesses should consider this). Secondly, with the exception of the links page, practically all content on the site relates to their business or the region in which they operate. Of course these two steps alone don't determine whether a site is WETA material. The Abel Tasman Kayaks website goes much further. There's a constant marine ecology theme which is reinforced by the site's sea-creature icons (dolphins, seals, crabs etc.), navigation panel background (sandy shoreline), choice of colours, attractive image borders and high quality maps. All of these images are professionally rendered too, unlike some sites we reviewed where images have been scanned at low resolutions from a company brochure. The presentation of information also impressed judges. A very good backgrounder tells of the company's long history and guides' depth of experience in kayaking. Trips, whether guided of "freedom" are well explained and information is included on "what to bring". The prices page is well laid out, states whether GST is included and that the currency quoted is $NZ (although an indication of exchange rates might also have been useful). Whilst there's little to fault, one judge commented that the description of the Abel Tasman National Park was a bit brief considering how much the park really does have to offer. Perhaps an external link, either on this page or, on the links page might provide the intending visitor with a little more information. Also, a minor point is that the backgrounder states that the company has been in existance 17 years since 1981. It's very easy to add these details to a site and forget about them but, perhaps a good reminder to us all that we need to review our content once in a while. Overall we feel that Abel Tasman Kayaks website was a pleasure to review and, refreshingly, stood well above other recent entries. Congratulations. |