Kiwi Specialist eLearning course development and implementation procedure will be presented with the help of the ADDIE model, which stands for Analysis, Design, -Development, -Implementation and -Evaluation. The eLearning platform, which was online in February 2013, will be presented in this sub-chapter.
i) Analysis
TNZ as a DMO was looking for the last twenty years to push marketing to the end consumer through the distribution chain. Additionally, it was in a constant search for possible ways to educate travel agents on selling New Zealand as destination, its activities and experiences, and had a strategy on providing as many online activities as possible in order to reduce dependence on TNZ employees.
At the same time, TNZ acknowledged that their trade partners globally were looking for specialist knowledge; needed a general genuine understanding of the overall destination and its experiences; as well as desired to generate new revenues. After the understanding of those internal and external needs, an initiative on developing a new training strategy with the use of ICTs has emerged in 2003.
While constantly benchmarking the activities of other ministries as well as what regional tourism offices were doing, representatives of TNZ confirmed that the use of such training has proved to be successful around the globe. From the point of view of a national destination such as TNZ, the use of online training is an effective strategy, as it is a very cost-effective tool that gives education to travel sellers globally. At the same time, from the head office perspective:
“There is a need to invest time and money for the online training development or redevelopment. The main input by the destination is needed in the design and development phase, but as soon as the platform is up and running, there is no need to undertake any major adjustments for the next five years.”
TNZ head office acknowledged that the technology is developing quickly, but also in the next five years, it will still deliver what the destination is looking for in terms of the training content, as it will always be aligned with the strategic goals of Tourism New Zealand, which is marketing New Zealand as a tourism destination.
While looking at how other courses are performing today, TNZ representatives suggest that New Zealand online training course is one of the best worldwide. They do concede that there are other courses, which are better than Kiwi Specialist, but mostly in terms of the incentives that agents get from the DMOs or their market representatives.
Within the head office of TNZ there is a clear understanding that the course created and provided by Tourism Australia – “Aussie Specialist”is their main competitor. This is not only due to the content training, but also because the countries are direct competitors from the tourism product perspective, as well as their geographical location. Therefore, the competition is not just within online modules, but also generally within online sales and general overall marketing.
From the American market perspective, the competitors, both in terms of the similarity of the tourism product and the quality of the online training are Australia, Fiji, Hawaii, South Africa and Switzerland. Yet, according to Carolyn Pope:
“In most cases travel agents in the USA if they have done the courses of the competitors, they have done also the course of TNZ. Travel agents in the US, when they start doing online training programs – they do them all”.
TNZ has decided that their online training program should have an expiry date, so travel agents are asked to upgrade their knowledge constantly about the destination they work with. As a result, trade partners need to do online training modules every two years in order to refresh what they know about the destination, its particularities, attractions, activities and main events.
The general strategy of TNZ head office is
“to choose “quality” over “quantity” in terms of the number of agents following the course. TNZ is looking forward to be able to say:
“This is a New Zealand Specialist”, who actually guarantees to the clients the level and the quality of knowledge that the agent possesses”.
ii) Design
Overall, the eLearning course has been designed in a way to be integrated in the trade corner of TNZ website, all main marketing and trade activities of TNZ.
Based on the above stated goals and benchmarking studies, the Kiwi Specialist program has been designed in the following way: there is an international version of the platform where the training content is provided in English and attracts trade partners globally.
Additionally to that, there are other nine platforms, which are customised for the needs of the travel trade partners based in India, Singapore, Malaysia & Indonesia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Mainland China, Korea, Thailand, UK & Europe and North America.
Nevertheless, the content is rather generic across the different markets, part of it also for the budget and resources constraints of TNZ. If an agent reads training modules in the American or in the Chinese version of the platform, presented content is comparable.
What actually differs is the language of the course. Initially the content has been developed in English, and then translated into Korean, Japanese and Chinese. The strategy of language translations is aligned with the travel trade website.
A similar approach has been undertaken also for the multimedia, pictures and videos that were used in the online training course. Currently there are the same multimedia materials being used along all markets, though if the resources permit, TNZ is planning to change them in the new version of the online training course.
Current online training content has been designed in ten mandatory modules and six optional ones. Ten mandatory modules are the next ones: the first one gives an overview of New Zealand, its regions and accommodation offers. It also introduces a general understanding and particular suggestions for travel agents on how to sell New Zealand.
The next nine modules cover the most important information about each region and what kinds of tourism activities can be undertaken: “Auckland and Northland”, “Eastern North Island”, “Central North Island”, “Western North Island”, “Wellington and Wairarapa”, “Nelson and Marlborough”, “Canterbury and West Coast”, “Fiordland, Wanaka, Queenstown & Central Otago”, “Dunedin, Coastal Otago and Southland”.
Additional six modules are optional for travel agents. They present hints that are more practical on how to sell different experiences in New Zealand and being able to satisfy different needs of the clients. The modules include “Māori Experiences”, “Food and Wine Experiences”, “Walking in New Zealand”, “New Zealand Ski”, “Youth and Backpacker Holiday”, “Air New Zealand Mega Familiarization Module”.
While the mandatory modules are available in all markets, not all of the optional modules are offered in every market. “Selling Youth and Backpacker Holiday” appears in the international version of the site and in the American one. This module is not offered in the Chinese, Korean or Japanese markets, as youth from those countries do not tend to travel to New Zealand for backpacking holidays.
At the same time, there are some market specific modules, these are planned for the future within the online training course. For instance, “Cruise trips to New Zealand”
module does not apply to every market. It would apply and will be developed only in the American and Australian markets.
Each training module requires from two to three hours of studying time, which in total accounts for twenty to thirty hours. However, the length actually depends on how and where travel agents prefer to study. For instance, if travel agents are studying from the office they might have clients, which interrupt, and as a result prolong the training session. If the users stop half way through the training or through the evaluation activities, the system remembers where they were, so with the next login the system will bring the learners to that exact point.
According to Belinda Chu,
“The option to bookmark modules and resume where the module was left off is highly appreciated by travel agents, as lots of them are very busy with their daily business activities, so it’s an important opportunity for them to come back to the point in the course where they were interrupted.”
In order to get to the testing activities, travel agents need to read training texts, observe associated images, which visually present the destination and its attractions. Additionally to that, travel agents within training materials can watch videos about the destination or its particularities and look at additional links in order to enhance their knowledge. No audio materials or interactive activities were tracked within the training course.
Every online training module has at least 25 questions to complete. Only 20 of them are presented to the user. Twenty-five questions in the database rotate constantly. At the very end of every training module, travel agents can submit their answers and automatically be told whether they are right or wrong. Users have an unlimited number of possibilities to pass the test, but need to get 100% of answers correctly, which makes the overall testing experience a rather demanding one. The certificate, which the users get upon the completion of the training course, is valid for two years. After that, learners need to refresh their knowledge by completing the course again, get news about the destination and reconfirm their status as destination specialists.
If a travel agent or anyone interested in the destination New Zealand would like to read the content of the training without an account they can do it, as the content is not password protected. However, if the user wants to undertake testing activities, and as a result be eligible to receive a certificate and incentives, there is a need to create an account with login details. While registering for the online training courses the user doesn’t need to prove their status with official travel agent ID number (e.g. IATA code).
It has been done on purpose by TNZ, as they believe that there is no harm on opening the training course also to potential tourists who would like to learn more about the destination New Zealand.
iii) Development
The Kiwi Specialist program has been designed and built on request by TNZ to fill the training needs gap as a new educational tool in 2004. Technically the eLearning tool has been built by an external, New Zealand based company, on a custom build content management system, which is called “Shado”.
Design and graphical part of the online training offer were customised externally and aligned with the corporate identity of TNZ. Additionally to that, representatives of the external agency put the content into an eLearning format, developed the look and feel of the online training, as well as designed learning scenarios and teaching scripts. Since then until February 2013, when the interviews and the analysis took place, neither technical part nor design or learning experience of the platform have undergone any change.
Current eLearning course, which is managed by TNZ, gives a very limited output in terms of usages’ analysis. The training does not have a mobile version, as it is believed in the head office of TNZ that most of the agents complete training modules on their PC’s in the office and not outside of the working time.
iv) Implementation
In this subchapter promotional and incentive activities initiated by the headquarters of TNZ and the offshore markets will be discussed. Particularities of incentives strategies on different markets will be presented as well.
a) Promotional activities
According to those responsible for the online training in the headquarters of TNZ:
“the relationship with the agents after they graduate is rather passive. There aren’t any structured aggressive programs on keeping travel agents engaged, except letting them know that the training is still available.”
eLearning course promotion is happening during face-to-face training, which are organized by market representatives, webinars and other trade events. Usually 70-80 trade agents attend the events at any one time, which is a good chance to promote online training courses about New Zealand Tourism, its structure and particularities and attract new travel agents to attend.
Additionally, the partnership with big agencies on the British market (e.g. STA), which actually include in their agents’ KPI the completion of the online training modules provided by TNZ, pushed the visits to the online training website. Further similar partnerships are planned in the future by TNZ on other markets as well.
Online promotion strategies have also been undertaken. For instance, in the Chinese market online banners and display ads were bought on the main search engine – Baidu.
At the same time, market representatives use emailing campaigns in order to communicate and promote online training modules among travel agents that might be interested to complete.
The North American market representative confirmed that they have previously used a Facebook page in order to promote the training course and other trade activities.
However as most of the agents in the USA and Canada are older and not active on social media, the page was not really used.
There was an attempt from the Head Office to initiate a campaign of Search Engine Marketing, which increased the traffic to the website, but didn’t significantly increase the level of sign-ups to the online training as was expected and anticipated.
b) Incentives
The strategy of the incentives program (e.g. certificate) and branding (e.g. use of logo) is developed by the Wellington office, while then administering of the programme is undertaken by staff offshore in each office. For instance, without having a centralized strategy on the form of presenting the certificate to the travel agents, market representatives analyse and decide what is important for the travel agents based in their regions. For instance, in India certificates are laminated in order to give them a more tangible value. In the Singapore market representatives present the certificate to the agents in a wooden frame in order to make it even more valuable. Additionally, the respected offshore markets decide on the familiarization trips.
Below the list of incentives that TNZ is providing to travel agents who have successfully graduated from the online training course is presented:
access to logo (see in Appendix 4), which can be used on stationery and other communications, such as business cards, letter heads, email signatures, etc.;
certificate (see in Appendix 6) and window decals for display in the agencies;
priority invitations to training sessions and familiarisation trips;
preferential listing on the customer website – www.newzealand.com, as suggested destination specialists.
There are two different certificates that an agent who graduates from the online training course can get. The first one is the online certificate, which is emailed to the agents or can be downloaded and printed out from the eLearning course while they have completed required online training modules. This certificate serves mostly to thank travel agents for their time completing the training and congratulate them.
If travel agents want to get an official “Kiwi Certified Specialist”, they need to fulfil the next three criteria:
complete ten mandatory modules every two years;
attend another training session, which is provided by the offshore markets (e.g.
webinar or in-presence market training);
make a trip to New Zealand. A qualifying trip to New Zealand can be obtained either via a familiarization opportunity organised by TNZ or any other agency or via a personal trip to the country. Travel agents need to show proof of their trip by sending market responsible a scan of their passport stamp or an airplane ticket.
Generally, travel agents around the globe need to complete ten mandatory modules in order to graduate. Only five of them need to be completed on the Chinese market. The reason for that is that traditionally Chinese tourists go to New Zealand to do just the
“Golden Route”, which include Auckland, Rotaroa, and few other places on the Northern
Island, without going to the Southern island. Consequently travel agents in China are tested only on the main relevant modules.
Additionally, certified travel agents are invited to participate in “Explore New Zealand”
program, which is open to media partners and travel agents who are coming to New Zealand, but not on a familiarization trip. This program enables registered and approved trade partners to explore a number of travel experiences in New Zealand and have access to a number of activities at a discounted price.
Meanwhile, during the designing of a new version of the eLearning course, the idea to create a special dedicated area on the trade website, which will be available only to
“Kiwi Certified Specialists”, has been discussed.
c) Particularities of the incentives by the markets
On both studied markets, Chinese and American ones, travel agents believe that the certificate and the logo they get from TNZ is very valuable for their customers. On the North American market, additionally to the benefits which are available for the agents worldwide (e.g. logo, certificate, and website listing as suggested destination specialists), the agents are encouraged to attend webinars or other in-presence trainings with invited speakers from New Zealand tourism trade companies. As the market structure is evolving and changing, the agents who are based in the North American Market are not invited automatically to the familiarization trips to New Zealand. Most of the trips organized nowadays on the American market are with tour operators, where ROI from the organized familiarization and educational trips can be better calculated.
While on the Chinese market ten agents every year are being sent to New Zealand for an educational program or a familiarization trip in order to enhance their knowledge and furthermore expand their marketing and sales activities.
d) Evaluation
TNZ has done a thorough evaluation of the performance of current eLearning course, which included two main steps:
usability test, which was undertaken by an external company in 2010;
survey with the off shore travel agents in 2012.
The first step of the evaluation process, a usability test, has been done in 2010 by an external company. It included a usability test analysis of the trade website and of the online training modules. The usability test has been done on two markets – on the Asian market (in Singapore) and on the American one (in Los Angeles). Five frontline travel sellers in both markets undergo the training modules while “thinking aloud” their
understanding and perception of the online training. Travel agents’ navigation on the online training was video-recorded. According to Tourism New Zealand (2012a), most of the results of the usability tests confirmed the concerns that TNZ representatives had about the online training course performance. While the majority of the respondents were satisfied with the content of the modules, there were some suggestions that need to be solved by TNZ. Generally, travel agents have asked for less text and more engaging
understanding and perception of the online training. Travel agents’ navigation on the online training was video-recorded. According to Tourism New Zealand (2012a), most of the results of the usability tests confirmed the concerns that TNZ representatives had about the online training course performance. While the majority of the respondents were satisfied with the content of the modules, there were some suggestions that need to be solved by TNZ. Generally, travel agents have asked for less text and more engaging