New Strategic and Interactive Features for TainasPlace.com

With TainasPlace.com (on ‘Eua Island in Tonga), you can now:

• Research Taina's Place and discover what to see and do in 'Eua and Tonga
• Book your international flights and Taina's Place in 'Eua
• Review and recommend Taina's Place, 'Eua and Tonga
• Share your 'Eua and Tonga experiences, so your friends and fellow travelers can like and comment on your travel anecdotes and photos

TainasPlace.com now has:

• An interactive Google map featuring Taina's Place, scenic spots in 'Eua, international and domestic airports, ferry terminals, the Tonga Visitors Bureau offices and more here
• International flight booking widgets for Air New Zealand and Pacific Blue here
• 'Like' and 'Share' buttons for 285 social media applications including Facebook, Twitter and Google Buzz on every page
• A customised Facebook business page (Facebook.com/TainasPlace) and related badge on every page of TainasPlace.com
• Trip Advisor accommodation recommendation, bravo and review badges on every page

TainasPlace.com also features:

• Taina's up-to-date accommodation information, pictures, rates and services
• Clearly visible contact information and 'book now' calls to action for business lead generation
• Unique accommodation selling points including "100% owned and operated", "FREE map with detailed information" for active travellers and "Three Languages Spoken"
• Unique destination selling points, including an activities page featuring  hiking, whale watching, scuba diving, mountain biking, horse riding, cultural tours, fishing, handicrafts, the island weekend disco and Sunday Church
• Photographic libraries including accommodation and services, 'Eua scenery, traveller activities, Tongan culture and Taina and her family
• A news section, which allows Taina to communicate with stakeholders regularly,advertise current travel packages and deals and promote Taina’s Place, ‘Eua Island and the Kingdom of Tonga

TainasPlace.com place Owner and operator Taina Taufalele said "I'm really excited about TainasPlace.com. I would especially like to thank Benja William and Sibylla. Benja developed printed marketing materials and compiled a comprehensive photo library. Sibylla showed Beni and myself how to move the print based content online and advised on how to implement strategic and interactive website features. In the short term, I look forward to using all the tools Benja and Sibylla have taught me to grow my business and promote Taina's Place, 'Eua Island and the Kingdom of Tonga. In the long term, I might translate my website into German, which I also speak fluently, and increase my exposure in that target market."

 
About Taina
Taina grew up on ‘Eua. In the late 1970’s she went to Nuku’alofa and began work in the hospitality industry.
In 1979, Taina married a German and went to live in his country. The wedding was held at the time on ‘Eua with over 500 guests (including her husband’s family from Europe). In Germany, people were entranced by her exotic looks and she was employed there as a model.

On returning to ‘Eua in 1998, she started building Taina’s Place which opened a year later. The Maxi Disco on ‘Eua, which Taina also started, took its name from her pet cat in Germany!

Taina met her Tongan husband Tei on the ‘Eua ferry in the 1990s and now they have 4 children together (Benny, Loui, Luisa and Chrissy).

Taina still gets plenty of opportunity to practise her fluent German, as she gets many surprised visitors from Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Looking after visitors from all around the world, preparing nice flowers and making delicious food is simply what Taina loves doing.

About Benja William
Beni first visited 'Eua in 1984 as part of trip around the Pacific on the deck of a cargo ship. Originally from New Zealand, Beni spent 3 years at school in Western Samoa in the 1970's, where he began his lifelong association with island Polynesia. He didn't return to 'Eua until February 2009 (silly boy) and discovered the wonderful piece of paradise which is Taina's Place. He has visited Taina's another 3 times since and has been very helpful in creating detailed 'Eua map and info sheets, flyers, extensive wall displays, and now together with Taina and Sibylla, a new website. He is very happy to be a part of the Taina's Place community!

About Sibylla

As the Media and Communications Officer for the Tongan Government's Ministry of Tourism, Sibylla is working collaboratively with stakeholders and focused on the development and international destination marketing of sustainable, community based tourism projects in Tonga as a means for social, economic and low carbon development.

Sibylla is employed through the Australian Youth Ambassadors for Development capacity building program (an initiative of the Australian Government overseas aid agency AusAID). Sibylla is also working with Pacific Asia Tourism Pty Ltd, which is a founding member of the Oceania Sustainable Tourism Alliance and focused on contributing to the achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.

Prior to working and living in Tonga, Sibylla worked as a Strategist at Google Australia and as an instructional designer for e-learning. View Sibylla's LinkedIn profile here.

Sibylla is an exhibiting artist and you can find her etchings, drawings and paintings at galleries around Australia (including the EWART Gallery, the Riverbank Gallery, Taste Canowindra and Newport Artworks). Whilst visiting ‘Eua Island, Sibylla fell in love with the subtropical rainforest on Taina’s doorstep, the wild beauty of the coast and the Euan way of life. View Sibylla's artworks here.

The Before Shot

Prior to implementing the new strategic and interactive features, TainasPlace.com looked like this:

How TainasPlace.com was updated

New Strategic and Interactive Features for TainasPlace.com were implemented using:

• Webnode website builder (Google Sites, Joomla, Wordpress and Weebly are some other available options)
• A customised Google Map
• TripAdvisor.com recommendation, bravo and review badges
• Add This ‘like’ and ‘share’ buttons for over 285 social media applications including Facebook, Twitter and Google Buzz
• Facebook business page and page badge
• Air New Zealand’s flight booking widget
• Pacific Blue flight booking widget
• Google Analytics, which gives rich insights into website traffic and marketing effectiveness.
• Google Webmasters, which shows Google's view of a site, diagnoses problems related to crawling, classifies link and query traffic and communicates sitemaps

More Marketing Tips
Sibylla's previous marketing tips include:

• 3 Easy Steps To Improve Your Online Marketing
• More tips on improving your online marketing
• Google Analytics: Explore, Discover, Act
• TongaHoliday.com – Like It AND Share It

Note: This news post was reproduced with the kind permission of the Tonga Visitors Bureau (Ministry of Tourism).