Jasons Launches New Website

For Immediate Release
2 August 2007

Jasons Launches New Website

Jasons Travel Media has chosen the day of its Annual General Meeting to launch a major new tourism website on www.jasons.com for independent travellers across New Zealand, Australia and the South Pacific.

The new Jasons website has been in development since February, and introduces some major changes to the previous site. "We have added a large number of new features for users", said CEO Steven Joyce. "The major things are our Fast-Find Search Tool and our interactive map search. Both of these features are pretty unique. Via our map search, users can find accommodation and activities listings for most towns in New Zealand, Australia, and the Pacific within four clicks. Or they can use the predictive text box on our Fast-find tool, which is also very quick."

"We are a geographic travel search site, so the main thing is to get our users to what they are looking for in as few clicks as possible. Jasons has travel and booking information searches for 3909 separate towns, cities and regions on the site."

The other big change has been in the presentation of listing information. "We have looked to increase the readability of our clients' listings, with larger photos, better slideshow options, and location maps on every listing. "The aim is to have everything at the traveller's fingertips, once again with the minimum of clicks", he said.

Jasons holds a huge amount of travel information online, and all of that has been brought forward on to the new site. "As well as the listing information, we have several thousand pages of editorial content about the markets we operate in. That has all been indexed on to the new site, in an easy-to-find format".

The new website underlines Jasons commitment to commission-free online bookings.

"There are real advantages to users with commission-free sites," said Mr Joyce. "We can encourage users to call, email, book-online, whichever they feel comfortable with. We are not taking a percentage of every online booking like the other sites, which means we can focus on bringing the tourism operator and the traveller together in they way that suits them best, as Jasons has with its print guides for the last forty years."

The site has been built for Jasons by Enlighten Designs of Hamilton. While today's launch represents the biggest single change users will see online, more features will be added on an ongoing basis. "We have 14 further projects in development now," said Mr Joyce. "They will be progressively added to the site over the next year."

The Jasons website has consistently been one of the top-performing travel websites in New Zealand, since its first introduction back in 1996. The company is confident the new site will lead to increased traffic for clients. "It's a competitive space on-line" said Mr Joyce, "but a lot of what we do is quite unique, and the Jasons brand has been trusted by travellers for a long time, to provide them with accurate travel information".

Mr Joyce says that the company's geographical strengths are in New Zealand, the South Pacific, and the Australian states of Queensland, Tasmania, and the Northern Territory. "With the launch of this website, our plan now will be to increase our listings content across the rest of Australia."

The site has been launched in beta-mode as any last-minute kinks are ironed out over the next few days. "So far, the reaction to the site and the performance of it has been very good", said Mr Joyce. "It's a real step forward on our previous site, and we are very happy with it".

ENDS

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