This site a test/trial/example site made by 3^rd year students from the Planning Department of Auckland University. It is the response to a brief on revitalising the town of Tuakau given to the department by the Tuakau Development Association.

The website is only a example of the framework that could be used if this idea was taken further. This is why every single one of Tuakau's attractions are not listed and all the headings don't have links.

The site is all about attracting tourists to the town. Tourists bring an external money supply into a region and therefore help grow its economy. Tuakau could benefit and be revitalised from outside money into the economy. Money spent in the town has spin-off effects for non-tourism businesses, which in turn lead to more money in the hands of the local residents and the local council. We students feel that Tuakau has a relatively untapped potential for tourism which we concluded after visiting the town and conducting a S.W.O.T (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis.

In today's technological world more and more people are using the internet for communicating and research. A rapidly growing sector of the internet is that of tourism. What better way to find out about possible holiday destinations than by looking them up on the net. There are now even ways to book your accommodation and airfares over the internet. A website for Tuakau can advertise the town to a worldwide audience of millions. There has been talk in Tuakau about locating an information centre in the town. Although this idea has its merits, a Tuakau website would be like a 'virtual information centre' which contacts people not already in the town and would be far cheaper to set up and run.

In researching about Tuakau we surfed the internet and found no sites about the town on or even on the Franklin District, bar a few personal or business homepages. To really cash in on the internet market a website is needed that coordinates all of Tuakau's tourist offerings and displays them in an easy to navigate way. This site can fill that gap in the market.

There are three ways in which a website may be found:

Finding the site via a link from a related page is the most used way of discovering websites. To increase the likelihood of this website being located in this fashion links to the site can be placed on various related sites e.g. Tourism New Zealand, Air New Zealand etc. To have a link on another site requires cooperation with the administrators of the site in question. This again is usually free, unless the link is more of an advertisement than a related site link.

Once the website has been reached it is then a matter of searching for what you want. The website is set out under the underlined headings down the lefthand columns throughout the site (navigation links).

So, if you were interested in seeing why on earth you'd come to Tuakau at all then you'd click on 'Things to do'. This gives you a list of tourist activities which you can then browse and click the one that you are interested in, for example the 'Museum'. By clicking on the 'Museum' link, you are presented with a page giving you the opening hours, location, prices and a photo of the museum.

If you were after a place to stay in the area you would click on 'Accommodation' which will give you a list of places. Choosing one of these would take you to a page about that selected accommodation giving you an explanation, prices, location and a number to ring for bookings. In the future the site could enable internet users to book the accommodation over the net with their credit card number.

The events page gives the time and location of regular events as well as a dairy of upcoming events. The 'How to get there' page shows Tuakau's location and ways to get there using different modes of transport. The page 'About Tuakau' gives the user general information on the town and important facts for the traveller.

The feedback form allows those interested to get additional information. This work by the user filling in the online form. This sends an e-mail to those responsible for the upkeep of the site which they can then reply to.

Of course a project as good as this is inevitably going to cost money to set up and run. To set up the website to its full potential, a webpage designer needs to be employed to give the site a bit more flair and make it easier to navigate. The cost of a designer varies depending on the level of service required.

We think that to make the site up to an appropriate level about $500 should be spent on the page design. If it is thought that this is too pricey then another option is to complete the page in its current format. Although it won't win design awards, it is simple enough for a novice to complete.

The maintenance and updating of the site needs to be carried out by those who have good local knowledge of the tourism industry and are in contact with all the different businesses featured on the site. We suggest the Franklin District Council could take this up via their information centres but welcome any other suggestions.

Set up costs total = $573

Yearly Operating Costs = $634

The main focus of the site is to advertise Tuakau, not to make a profit, therefore a level of income is required only to offset the costs. There are two main ways which we see the site can earn income.

Firstly, the site can allow advertisers to place ads in boxes on its pages. Although annoying to some internet users, these ads are a very common practice and should be used if possible. The income from an ad depends on the profile of the website. The higher the hits per day the higher the price that can be demanded for advertising. For the Tuakau site we can expect no income from advertising in the early stages and a minimal fee once it is established. This is because of the inherently low profile of the site. Once the site is established it can still expect minimal income from ads.

Possibly the best way to offset the costs of the site is to work it in the way many tourist trail brochures are set up. That is, all the featured businesses on the site could pay a contribution to the running costs. For example, 15 businesses could feature on the site and to cover the operating expenditures it would cost each business only $42 a year or $3.50 a month. The actual amount each business pays would depend on that firm's level of exposure on the site and so forth.

If the idea of a Tuakau website is taken up by the Tuakau Development Association then we suggest taking this action plan:

For simplicity's sake, a webpage designer can carry out all the above steps once they are bought into the picture.

The possibilities for the site are limitless. Taking the site to its ideal state would allow internet users to enter the site from one of its numerous links with other New Zealand tourism sites. Once at the site, all of Tuakau's offerings would be presented in a creative and easily navigable way. The user would be able to book any accommodation or activities while still online by using their credit card number. Tuakau items/souvenirs could even be purchased from the online shop and mailed to the buyer. The site would pay for itself through advertising and featured business's contributions.

In the long term, the site could be expanded to not only serve the tourism theme, but also serve town functions such as advertising community meetings etc. Another possible future would be for the site to become part of an online Franklin directory with links to all the other district's town's webpages.