Operator's Section Why you should list your boat How we get you work How we can help you & what it costs How to get listed A letter from Pic Testimonials

Mission Statement 1) To provide useful, detailed and accurate information about a wide range of New Zealand and Pacific vessels available for hire, and to develop new markets for their operators by making this information easily accessible. 2) To promote the development of the charter industry by linking with and supporting existing industry groups and individual operators.

Why you should list your boat

The internet has become a huge force in marketing. For a number of our clients, it is now the ONLY medium they use. Used properly, it can bring you extraordinary results for remarkably little cost.

New Zealand Charterguide has been on line for more than 10 years. With 270 vessels and up to 20,000 visitors a month, it has become the marketing cornerstone for many charter businesses just like yours.

There is no directory like it in New Zealand. The poor old Kiwi Bed and Breakfast operator has to advertise in a dozen or so directories to get the coverage you can have with a single listing. It's a tremendously useful resource for anyone looking for a charter boat - a one-stop-shop that thousands of people use every month. Isn't www.charterguide.co.nz where you would look if you were wanting to charter?

There are two essential aspects to internet marketing: Providing the right sort of information, and getting that information to your customers. People need different information at different times: Muddle your messages and you lose your customer. Internet users have very specific requirements.

A TV or cinema audience can be moved to book your vessel by showing them what a great time they will have on board. The reader of a tourist newspaper needs to know where you go and when you depart. A radio audience will want a snappy, easily remembered means of contacting you, and your magazine ads should be tailored to suit that mag's readership profile

So what are internet users after? They have learned to flick through huge piles of information very quickly. They dont have the patience to download the glorious image of your favourite bay that made your brochure so successful or to hang around figuring out which flashing doodad will lead them to your rate card.

Like readers of the yellow pages or classified advertisements, they will have come to your site because they are looking for the specific product or service you have to offer. They don't need or want to be told how much fun boating can be. They want detail - nouns and numbers, not adjectives and estimates.

The Charterguide provides easily chosen options for different types of charter. Listings are concise, yet packed with detail. They are purposely kept to a single page, and your text is professionally prepared from the information you give us, ensuring a uniformity of style that makes it easy to read.

Our format is not a matter of guesswork: Before we put finger to keyboard, an intensive survey of charter boat users told us what sort of information our readers wanted. Since then, feedback from users and focus groups has refined and improved our presentation.

How we get you work

Search engines send robotic "spiders" out to crawl all over the web. They do their best to decide what your site is about and then file it under a variety of headings. Your customer enters the words he thinks relate to the topic he is looking for and gets back a long list of sites. If he does not find useful information about the topic he is looking for in the first few listings he will try different words or use another search engine.

On some engines you can buy a high ranking. You can also get a "search engine optimisation" expert to use technical trickery to move your site up the list. The problem with these methods (if they work) is that the searcher ends up with either a straight out advertisement or with information that doesn't match their search. Eventually the users of such search engines become disillusioned with them and try another system.

It's like natural selection. The engines that provide useful results and cannot be tricked or bought off are the ones that people will use. An interesting site that serves real needs will eventually rise to the top. Trying to force people to look at it wastes your time and theirs.

The Charterguide is online for more than 10 years now. Concentrating on providing easily accessible, useful information has seen us achieve top, or near-top ranking in any boat charter related search on all the popular search engines.

Links from other sites are a good way to publicise a web site, but unless they are from a specialist directory site, links are unlikely to be used by those actively looking for a particular service. Their greatest use is for encouraging surfers to visit and bookmark a site for later reference. Some search engines - such as Google - count inward links in ranking their search results.

Worthwhile links need to be individually applied for - sometimes using an online form, but more often than not they require a personal email. Paid links can be very effective too, but deciding which are worth having requires a lot of research. The Charterguide has 700 inward links, of which four are paid.

Just as the yellow pages bring similar services together in print, directory sites maintain online directories of businesses - providing links, contact details and varying amounts of information. Within NZ, UEB and the Yellow Pages host general business directories, while PureNZ, the AA and Jasons concern themselves with tourist-related enterprises. Niche guides, such as The Bed and Breakfast Guide, Baches and Holiday Homes and New Zealand Charter Guide provide in-depth coverage of their specialist fields. With the exception of PureNZ.com, which is sponsored by Tourism NZ, all these sites charge for their services.

New Zealand's biggest directory of charter boats is Telecom's Internet Yellow Pages, which gives the name & phone number of all boats listed in its print editions. About 80 of their listings are linked to web pages. A Telecom hosted web page costs a minimum of $600 a year. The equivalent page in the charter guide costs $200 a year. In October, Telecom's 20 top charter boat listings averaged 62 visitors. Our top 20 listings averaged 159, with an average of 89 across all our 180 vessels.

On a cost per visitor basis, the charterguide is NINE TIMES more effective than the internet yellow pages, and even the most expensive Internet yellow pages listing wont bring you anywhere near as many visitors as a standard listing in the charterguide.

The charterguide is a direct marketing tool. Unless they specifically request my assistance, clients come direct to you. However, some 60% of NZ's tourism receipts still come through the wholesale and retail travel industry and for obvious reasons, travel agents and charter brokers are reluctant to direct their clients to the Charterguide.

To help charter brokers and the conventional tourism industry sell your vessel to their clients, we set up NZafloat.com. It was launched at TRENZ (NZ's travel industry trade show) in May 2002. It is an entirely separate website - just as big as the charterguide, but it is "blind" - it has no outward links whatsoever. Instead of giving visitors your contact details, it refers them back to their travel agent.

Every vessel listed in the Charterguide gets a free listing in NZafloat, updated automatically whenever your charterguide listing is updated. You can find any vessel's NZafloat web page by clicking the "agency page" link on the bottom right hand corner of their charterguide listing.

Because we cannot track the inquiries or transactions it generates, we don't know who uses it - and we are not concerned. It exists purely to bring you more business. Next time an unknown charter broker or travel agent or contacts you with an inquiry, ask how they found you. If they are not using your NZafloat web page already, tell them where it is and they can send it to their clients as an online brochure.

How we can help you & what it costs
 

• YOUR CHARTERGUIDE LISTING - $225 (inc. GST) pa
  Your vessel's standardised listing is the cornerstone of the Charter Guide's success. Concise, easy to read, and packed with solid information, it makes it easy for potential customers to understand exactly what you have to offer. To add your boat to the fleet we need at least one (max 9) good beam-on photo and a completed listing form. See 'How to get listed'.
   
• PANORAMAS - $195 to $295 one time fee
  When it comes to showing off your vessel, there is no better way of doing it than by offering a virtual tour. Your boat is "open to view" 24 hours a day and looks her best at all times. I set up a special camera in your saloon, and record a 360degree panorama. Look at a sample - or find a directory of all our panos here. Adding a saloon panorama to your listing costs $195, and with extra cabins costing from $10 (for a single photo) to $75 (For an additional panorama) apiece. Once we add it to your page, its there for good - you pay no ongoing charges other than your annual listing fee. (I do a twice-yearly tour with my camera, so let me know well in advance if you want a call)
   
• UPDATES - Free
  We pride ourselves on providing accurate information all the time. If you move your vessel from one area to another, change your rates, phone or email address - or even get a better photo, we want to know about it. Email your alterations to us at any time. Listing changes are uploaded immediately and cost nothing.
   
• ARCHIVED EMAIL RECORD - Free
  All initial email inquiries you get through the charterguide are archived in our log files. If at any time you want copies of them you have only to ask.
   
• VISITOR REPORTS & NEWSLETTERS - Free
  You will want to know how many visitors your web page attracts. Every month we send you a short email newsletter and your listing's visitor numbers.
   
• SELL YOUR BOAT - $30 one time fee
  If your boat is on the market, tell us the price and we will include it in a special sub-directory for a one-off charge of $30.
   
• EASY-TO-REMEMBER WEB PAGE ADDRESSES - Free
  When you take a listing, we give you an easily remembered link to which you can refer telephone inquirers. It takes the form of www.charterguide.co.nz/boatname. You need never post a brochure again!
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• BOOKING SERVICE - 10% Commission
  
• To allow busy boat operators to concentrate on their core business we can also offer a Booking Service to manage and process your customer enquiries.
• For example, some customers know very little about boats and are unsure which part of New Zealand they should be looking in - so they ring us on the 0800 number with a variety of enquiries. For these potential customers, our booking service will check availability, obtain quotes, arrange/collect payment and provide you and your customer with comprehensive details regarding the charter.
• New Zealand Charter Guide liaises with the clients and the operator and once costs and availability are confirmed, and on the receipt of the operator invoice, we transfer 20% of the basic charter fee to secure the booking and 70% four weeks before the charter (we retain 10% commission).



Cancellations:
If the customer cancels the charter no refund is given on the deposit. For customer cancellations within 4 weeks of the charter, a refund can be given at the operator's discretion. If the operator cancels the charter, the customer receives a full refund.

Costs for extras, e.g. fishing gear, bait, diving equipment, food etc. are payable directly to the operator on the day of the charter.


• MULTILISTINGS - List your fleet and save
  Do you run more than one boat? Two or more listings under the same address each attract a $50 discount.
  
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How to get listed

1. Complete our online listing form or download the PDF version or we can fax or post you a copy. (Ph 0800 235628, or Email us)
2. Send us at least 1 (max 9) good, beam-on photo of your boat. This can be digital - a postcard-sized, .jpg, .tif or .bmp at a minimum of 72dpi, or it can be a photograph. (Tip: if you don't have one handy, the folks who do your advertising layouts might have something on file). Email or post it to New Zealand Charter Guide, Box 4040, Nelson.
   
3. We will set up your listing, put it online for you to check, then invoice you for payment on the following month.

Testimonials

"Thank you for this great resource." - Alison Heckler, Australia New Zealand Amazing Travel, California

"I must say I am VERY impressed with the website, this is exactly what our customers want when they are hiring yachts" - Nina Farrimond, Taylor-Made Travel, UK

"Your setup is a tremendous resource for getting folk into the right boat and I wonder if boat owners really appreciate what an effective tool it is. The charter industry is a very difficult and fickle business at the best of times given human nature, the weather and propensity of the best laid plans to go wrong but amidst all of that your service shines forth as a terrific internet tool for the industry." - Frank Vogels, Charter Broker, NZ

"Had a good 1st season - most of my work through charterguide web page" - Terry Breeze, Te Aura Charters, BOI.

"Have had some good business from web site, and any more you can point our way would be great." - John Doherty, Kilvay Charters, Auckland

"Your site works very well, right now I am getting at least one to three inquiries a week for my business" - Christy Butterfield, Melinda Sea Adventures, Tonga

"Thanks for all your help during the past years in helping me to sell my product. I will surely recommend your site to any new potential operators." - Tom Waters, Windborne Charters, BOI

"I would just like to take this opportunity,of thanking you so much for everything that you have done for us over these past years." - Nellie, Hinetai Charters, Auckland.

"Charterguide is good value. We check EVERY enquiry to find our where they found us." - Peter Tait, Talisker Charters, Stewart Island

"Your site is the only one we use now. The website of ours was a waste of money for a small hobby business like ours, so we intend to rely on you to make our way in the world.Thanks for the work you do on behalf of Charter boats etc. It's great." - Marilyn & Den Port, Pipedream Charters, Marlborough

"Must say we have received some very good positive enquiries from your site and a number have turned into firm bookings...we cannot ask for more than that !" - Carol Denton, Moondance Charters, Auckland