Tourists losing favour for Domestic Airlines

“The June quarter report released yesterday shows international visitor satisfaction levels for scheduled domestic flights have dropped from a rating of 8.2 out of 10 in December 2006 to 7.7 in June.”
Source: NZ Herald, Sept 1st 2008

Well, which is where and why Transfercar comes into the picture.

And with us stepping up, with what we do – Mr & Mrs Domestic Airlines will have to do a lot better or NO ONES  going to fly! 🙂

NZ Herald OE photo competition

New Zealand Herald has got this brilliant ‘Kiwi OE photo’ competition, some brilliantly beautiful photos added from Kiwis all over the world everyday.

NZ Herald OE Photo Competition

Have a look at it here

Was thinking what alternative ‘OE stands for’ I could come up with

Overweight Englishman,
Outsourcing Economy,
Outlandish Exposure,
Overturned Elephant,
Organised Embossing,

All great competitions I reckon! =)

[ps – OE = Overseas Experience]

Do you judge a hotel by its Internet Security?

Well – very interesting article I came across in the Herald the other day.

As per the story – a hacker hacked into a hotel server, left a data stealing trojan that gave him access to all the hotel customer data information!! The hotel in question (for logical reasons) has completely downsized the enormity of situation, saying “it only affected 10 customers”!
Super dangerous dont you think? considering credit card details etc.

All these stories convincing me to ration my credit card use both home and overseas!

Read more here

Rugby World Cup 2011

I was fortunate to attend Thrive 2008 at Aotea square on Thursday and was quite fascinated with what Martin Snedden (CEO Rugby New Zealand 2011 Ltd.) had to say.

With the obvious concerns regarding whether New Zealand had the infrastructure to deal with and event of this scale he seems to have the right attitude – pointing out that this is our chance to show the world what a ‘small country like New Zealand’ can do!

The was a very concerned message that the recent media portrayal of the average New Zealander is ‘something we should try not to be’ …. was not sure exactly what in particular he was referring to, but I liked his pun when he said “New Zealand is mad about Rugby, look back at the last few months and you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about”.

I reckon Transfercar is just what New Zealand needs to cope with all that travel over the World Cup – I mean, driving around relocation cars for free between matches…this could be New Zealand’s new ‘tourist attraction’!!….’Transfercar, makes up for God giving us crazy aas petrol prices!’ =P

ps – bad news: expect ‘international ticket prices’ with the humongous costs involved in the bid for hosting rights!

Read a related article @ RugbyHeaven.co.nz

Get your hands dirty!!!!

I had the plessure today to be invited by Dr Shuyuan Wu as a guest lecture for a undergrad paper at AUT in Innovation and Entrepreneurship. One of the objectives of the paper was for students to generate a business idea and present it in front of a panel – just like Dragons Den. I used my own company, Transfercar, as a case study to demonstrate how an idea was turned into a new venture.

I was amazed with the quality and diversity of the ideas that these students have generated – but gee – what happend to good old fashioned market research? Not that the student have not done any market research – they had been told to identify their competitors and estimate the market potential – simple Google research – but none have actually been out getting their hands dirty. None have actually been out talking to real people – real customers – real suppliers.

I guess it is not the students fault – but maybe academics should spend less time teaching students how to do regression and Porter’s 5 forces – and spend more time teaching them how to use their network and communicate with people – because at the end of the day – isnt that what entrepreneurs do.