• Vidal
• Elephant Hill
• Black Barn
• Craggy Range

-it doesn’t get much better than that!

And they’re joining forces to offer an exclusive cocktail evening to their most loyal fans.

Kennedy Park Top 10 Resort is one of three national finalists under the ‘Accommodation Holiday Parks’ category.

The theme for this year’s awards of ‘Innovation and Creativity’ has a strong connection for Kennedy Park’s General Manager David Aflallo who says innovation is at the core of its business and they are constantly looking ahead to ensure they are giving their customers what they want.

“ We are delighted to be a finalist in the awards and are now looking forward to the next phase of the judging process where we can demonstrate in more detail how we live and breathe innovation on a daily basis in our business,” says David.

News of becoming a finalist follows other recent successes including winning the 2009 Westpac Chamber of Commerce Business Awards for Excellence in Sustainable Tourism and recent enhancements to their Qualmark ratings.

“We’ve just had our Enviro Gold rating renewed which makes us one of the first holiday parks in New Zealand to achieve this and we have also received renewal of our strong five Star rating. This is all great news for the park and our customers, “says David.

Phase two of the judging process now begins with a panel of 18 judges assessing 34 finalists in a range of different categories and will include site visits, mystery shopping, phone and online assessments and contacting referees.

The 2010 Tourism Award winners will be announced at a special function in Auckland on the 14th of October attended by Prime Minister and Minister of Tourism John Key.

So cool – we have all our fingers and toes crossed David!!

Just about every business has a website and an email newsletter and right now we’re seeing a huge amount of activity as companies around the world add social media strategies to their online marketing mix with tools like blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

So what about here in Hawke’s Bay?

• Are Hawke’s Bay businesses embracing this global shift away from traditional marketing?
• How are Hawke’s Bay businesses taking advantage of the new marketing opportunities available to them online?

At Mogul, our aim is simple: to help Hawke’s Bay businesses to be smarter than other regions in their online marketing activities e.g. our Google Places initiative, so the next step is to conduct an online marketing survey to:

• Gather relevant local information to share with local businesses.
• Identify which online marketing channels Hawke’s Bay businesses are using and how.
• Analyse what sort of results they’re getting.
• Establish where your business fits in with the rest of Hawke’s Bay.

We’re putting up a nice shiny Apple iPad 16GB 3G (worth $1000.00) as a draw prize* for completing the survey and we will present the findings to participating businesses**.

Once the results have been analysed, you’ll be invited to attend an interactive workshop where Mogul will provide expert online marketing tips and advice that will apply to you and your business, and will help you to get your business up to speed online.

Take the survey here : http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/online-marketing-survey

And tell your friends and colleagues!

*Prize will be drawn on the 17th September 2010.
**The identity of all respondents will remain confidential in accordance with the ESOMAR Code of Conduct.

“Go Fish” is a gorgeous recipe book with fabulous photos and helpful ‘how to’ tips – a great present for my fish-mad brother in law in Sydney.

Turns out this guy is in Auckland and is starting an accounting company called Cloud Accountants that aims to do most of it’s work in the cloud – using Xero. Because Xero is web-based, your accountant can log in from anywhere and do your monthly and annual accounts without having to see you – which suits me fine!

We had a chat on Skype and Justin was keen to get started, so we scheduled a planning session (via Skype) and away we went.

Never met the guy (in person)! But the project was a dream to work on (no pun intended), distance was absolutely not an issue and I found JK to be a good dude and an ‘A’ client. Needs to blog more though…

And to complete the circle, Cloud Accountants featured on the Xero site today!!! Which is very cool.

Amazingly, we have had enquiries from from the States and the UK about the Cloud Accountants site – people seem to love it.

We’re working with the Havelock North Business Association (HNBA) members to give Havelock North a regional ‘digital advantage’ ahead of big events like the 2011 Rugby World Cup, and to provide visitors with information they may require, such as businesses’ opening hours and location.

We have contracted EIT student Damian to get out and about in the streets of Havelock North, creating and verifying Google Places listings in an effort to make Havelock North the most ‘Google-y’ place in New Zealand!

Visitors coming to Hawke’s Bay might be looking for a dentist, tyre stockist, food market or a babysitter. We want to ensure when they are searching online, using a computer or their smartphone, that Havelock North businesses are as easy to find as possible.

According to the official Google Blog, over 4 million businesses around-the-world have claimed their Google Places listings since its launch in September 2009. The listings connect people to relevant information such as hours of operation, vouchers, and product offerings, but also offer photos and video uploads. We want to ensure Havelock North is capitalising on the service.

It’s estimated that around 20% of all searches on Google are related to location. Google Places is a fantastic free service that enables businesses to raise their digital profile and promote their goods and services to people searching the Web.

Another great benefit of Google Places for businesses is that it provides valuable insights into how many people are clicking to their listings, what keywords they used to find it and even what areas people travelled from to get to the business. All this can really help a business fine tune their offer or expand into other markets.

Havelock North Business Association President, Adrienne Pierce is excited to see Mogul embrace the tool. “We’re very grateful to Mogul who are willing to invest their own time, for free, for the collective good of Havelock North businesses. The Association is working towards providing Havelock North Village with wi-fi access, so Mogul’s initiative works in really well with our strategy. We live in a digitally mobile society, so Havelock North will be in a powerful position to communicate and direct visitors to the town through their computers and smartphones.”

Anyone can create their own Google Places listing but not everyone is sure how to go about it. If there are any other Havelock North business’ wishing Mogul to volunteer their services to help with their Google Places listing, please contact me (Georgina Miller) at Mogul on 06 877 7478 or email george@mogul.co.nz

Check it out – http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/06/29/travel/20100704-surfacing.html

Tuckbox is a fantastic range of kids clothing for 4 – 12 year olds – and it’s designed and distributed by local sisters right here in Hawke’s Bay.

Sisters Amy Nilsson and Soph Hansen come from Hawke’s Bay retail royalty – anyone remember Stitches (THE place to get your Holiday T back in the 80′s)? And Bob’s Jeans? And 95mph? That was their dad, Brian McAra. And mum Lorraine currently has Blue Moon in Havelock North.

The Tuckbox Winter 2010 collection is the label’s second season and to celebrate Amy and Soph hosted a Tuckbox event at Cape Estate last weekend – and it was a smash hit with the kids (and the mums)!

My own daughters are notoriously fussy shoppers – especially when it comes to pink! – but we came home with the navy blue and a red jersey dresses shown above (and 2 t shirts and 4 pairs of leggings – but I digress…). They were so popular that the little toads refused to take them off and wore them to bed!

Amy & Soph have just taken Tuckbox to the next level with the TUCKBOX online shop, which is very dangerous for an avid online shopper like me!

And if you like what you see, become a fan/follow Tuckbox on Facebook – http://bit.ly/dkD4X0

Congrats Amy and Soph, I am really stoked Tuckbox is going so well and keep the cool styles coming!