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Website Copywriting – Suit Hire and Sparkies Online
Two homegrown businesses and two new online ventures. Omen Suit Hire in Frankton and Anderson’s Electrical in Wanaka have recently joined the estimated 41% of small kiwi businesses who have a website. While little appears to connect them, the reality is they have far more in common with each other – and other disparate businesses than they may realise. Both are the result of modest beginnings and a commitment to the Southern Lakes area as it has evolved over the past decade.
Both are businesses adding value to two vital aspects of of the local economy – construction and the burgeoning wedding industry. They also used timbrewster.co.nz website copywriting services, so they’re all class in my books. Thanks guys. Welcome to the online world and best wishes for the future.
Eye in the Sky – Kia Ora New Zealand
Bridal parties say their photo shoot on a remote alpine peak was the highlight of the day. Globetrotting travellers are floored by the scenery. But Aspiring Helicopters’ most grateful passenger must be the guy plucked off a narrow rock ledge overhanging a 600m drop in Mount Aspiring National Park.The climber had lost his footing and gone for the slide of his life before clinging to the last available rock long enough for Charlie Ewing – pilot and local farmer – to manoeuvre his helicopter close enough….more
Winter Wonderland – Kia Ora New Zealand
We tell them not to play on the road and we keep them away from sharp objects. Then, on a freezing winter’s day we take them to the top of a snow-covered mountain and release them. To an outsider, it looks like madness. For ski families, it’s the best part of the year. The rush of the downhill ride is an experience children never forget. The sense of achievement from getting down that frst black run or landing a jump ….more
Off The Edge – Four Corners – North & South
From the tropical jungles of Borneo to the near-vertical drops found at big-mountain skiing and snowboarding venues around the world, it’s been a life of extremes for 23-year-old twins Janina and Maria Kuzma. Raised in remote parts of Papua New Guinea and Borneo, where their father worked as a mining engineer, their passion for the snow was sparked when they were taken to the Canadian Rockies at the age of fve on the frst of many annual winter holidays…..more
Mystic River – Kia Ora Magazine
Mythology and geology are constant companions on a Wanaka River Journeys’ jet-boat trip up the braided Matukituki River into Mt Aspiring National Park. The twin passions of operator Brent Pihama become evident immediately after introductions and a safety briefng on the boat. Starting with a karakia (Maori prayer), the former commercial diver….more
Hawea Holiday Park
Tim’s ability to clearly understand our our business goals and tie it together with optimised copy for our website has been a great asset for our online marketing campaign. As a result our site features prominently in a number of searches and his positive attitude to turning work around quickly, colloborating with other members involved in the project and following up after the launch was a great help.
Park owners, Richard and Sarah Burdon
Pat Deavoll – Climber
She first summited Mt Cook at the age of 17, and over the past two decades has climbed her way to being one of the country’s top mountaineers with an enviable tally of alpine expeditions from the Southern Alps to Nepal, China, India and Alaska. Over two northern hemisphere winters she spent 120 days climbing frozen waterfalls in the Canadian Rockies leading ascents on grade 6 climbs on classic routes with names like Sea of Vapours, Nemesis and Acid Howl. When she got bitten by….more
Coffee Beans are Black Gold – But a paper cup premium?
By Tim Brewster
Do they think no-one notices? And who gave them the idea in the first place?
The practice of some café’s charging extra for a takeaway coffee is such a barefaced ripoff it instantly demolishes any hard earned good will quicker than… instant coffee.
Most café owners will tell you that the cost of seating a customer, serving their table, cleaning up after them and washing crockery is a much pricier alternative than simply handing them a paper cup.
But for some establishments in Wanaka, Dunedin and the more recent and remote caffeine outposts in Roxburgh and Invercargill, the takeout paper cup is a premium product ‘attracting’ – to use the ubiquitous term favoured by finance and telecommunication companies – an additional surcharge to ratchet the price up even further.
Bring the subject up with business owners and you get a rather chilly response – especially with other customers present.
One hippy outfit even referred to the ‘cost to the environment’ which presented the unlikely scenario of staff earnestly adding up the planet tax at the end of the day to send off to their cause du jour.
Has the ‘upsell’ concept been imbedded by the espresso machines supplier as a nice little earner when they sign up a new business onto the caffeine gravy train?
Contrast this with busy inner city café’s in places like Sydney where a takeaway is often 50 cents less than a seated serving.
Fair business practice vs short term gain? Real service vs ripoff.
Freedom Camper deposits — Not our Bread and Butter
Ugliness from tourists literally caused a stink in godzone recently thanks to a few unwanted donations deposited by freedom campers at Lake Hawea.
The bolshie response by the Hawea Community Association blocking off a popular lakeside parking spot highlights a serious problem that we need to get a handle on.
These guys literally crapped within view of a perfectly good licensed campground with real toilet facilities where they could stay for $30 a night.
Are these the same people who badger our info centre staff for free activities, arrogantly ignore warnings about the weather and being ill equipped, ignore requests to fill out intentions books so they can avoid paying hut fees and then suck up our Search and Rescue budgets with their stupid behaviour?
It’s an easy fix to put people in boxes but there are a number of visitors who need to be put in one – preferably a full portaloo which then gets turned upside down.
Cheap tourists with a welfare mentality to our taxpayer funded resources should stay in cheap countries because we – and the environment – simply can’t afford them.
We’re very lucky New Zealand is still a relatively easy and safe place to travel around.
The majority of our outdoorsy types, students and lifestylers could collectively write volumes on how to enjoy adventure in the great outdoors on a miserly budget.
And generally, as taxpayers, we’re happy to support national parks, the huge network of huts, camping areas and managed waterways that we can use for no extra cost.
As an investment we get it back in spades: generations of kiwis are brought up with a healthy regard for natural adventure and we produce outstanding outdoors people – guides, climbers, rafters and kayakers, outdoor instructors and the like who contribute to our thriving adventure tourism economy as well as our identity as kiwis.
But the floodgates for backpackers travelling on the cheap have been open for too long and now they’re being commercially targeted by the campervan companies who benefit from our relatively uncrowded landscapes.
So why not raise the entry fee?
Travellers to Bhutan are committed to US$250 in daily spending – what’s a day in godzone worth?