Jasons Travel Media confirms forecast for year

Jasons Travel Media confirms forecast for current financial year and launches exciting new online look

Jasons Travel Media has released details of its focus for the year ahead at the company’s AGM on Wednesday 28 July. Chief Executive Matthew Mayne shared his plans with shareholders to push forward developments in technology alongside the company’s traditionally strong print offering. “Jasons aims to keep one step ahead of the competition with a continual focus on innovation and creative end user experiences,” says Mayne.

He says the company is forecasting a result in line with the prior financial year, although the fragility of the New Zealand and international economies makes the announcement of a specific figure difficult. He explained to investors that company growth would be derived from online and showed his vision for the future. Jasons is investing heavily in its online people, processes and technology to capitalise on the rapidly growing online accommodation booking market. New Zealand closely follows the Australian market which is growing at 15% year on year and is expected to be worth $6.7bn by 2015.

To demonstrate this investment Mayne unveiled a completely revamped website at http://www.jasons.com complete with new social media elements such as Jasons’ own ‘Stayed, Paid & Raved’ authenticated feedback platform, for visitors who book and pay through the site. Offering an improved accommodation booking engine and more easily searchable travel information, the site is cleaner, faster and more accessible to all.

“While the new website is far cleaner and a far more advanced user experience, the real beauty of the website is what you don’t see,” says Mayne. The site represents many months of work to optimise search engine rankings and speed, with the new platform running significantly faster than its predecessor. This will support Jasons continued position as the number one visited travel and accommodation listing website in New Zealand (based on June 2010 results – Total Unique Browsers, Nielsen Net rankings).

Jasons targets the ‘free and independent traveller’ segment, both domestically and internationally.

Background
No other travel publisher in New Zealand has the coverage, range or depth of Jasons Travel Media. The Jasons database is the largest in the industry, with more than 31,400 detailed tourism operator listings, 1000s of travel articles and 100s of maps.

Yearly, Jasons prints and distributes more than 5.7 million copies of 78 different FREE print directories and guides, and delivers 1.63 million online user sessions at www.jasons.com. Its monthly travel email newsletter, Jasons Explore! reaches a customer database of more than 100,000.

Incorporated as a family business in 1967, Jason Publishing Co Ltd was restructured as Jasons Travel Media Ltd in 2000 to reflect the changing nature of its business, rapidly transforming itself into an expert 'infomediary', delivering high-quality information to connect travel buyers with sellers.

For regular travel news, updates and offers, we invite you to follow Jasons on http://twitter.com/jasons_travel with almost 2,300 other followers or visit our page at http://www.facebook.com/JasonsTravel

ENDS