I was lucky enough to go to Australia recently. Jane (my wife) and I went to the last week of the Australian Tennis Open. Roger Federer was unbelievable! The other thing that was unbelievable was the attitude of Australians currently. They are so positive about their future and they know exactly where they are going. As a nation, they have an amazing long term vision.

By 2050 their population is going to reach 50 million it seems (more than double the current population). Most of that growth is going to happen through immigration. Like the USA once upon a time, Australia see their future prosperity as based on importing new countrymen (and women!). They are looking for skills and they are prepared to pay for them. This is a huge threat to NZ.

Australia has recognised the value of skilled migrants to economic growth. Immigrants create wealth for lots of reasons. There are plenty of economic models that prove it and especially more wealth for the existing permanent residents. Already Melbourne’s property prices are at an all time high and 20% above pre-recession values. This in itself is a significant trend which NZer’s should not ignore (ie we are about to see another growth spiral in property values in our main urban centres since Auckland lags Melbourne and Sydney).

So what does this mean for Rotorua? First we need a much larger population if we are ever going to compete with the larger and faster growing cities in NZ and Australia. Otherwise the wage gap will simply suck our most skilled employees across the Tasman. Second, thank goodness that we have finally turned our airport “international”. We are well behind Queenstown (ie in international flights and carriers) but we have at least as much to offer. We have beautiful scenery, lakes, mountains, and unique NZ culture. The only thing we don’t have is quality retail. For a city the size of Rotorua (much bigger than Queenstown) and with the number of tourists we attract (double Queenstown’s!) our retail shops are a disgrace. Anyone who disagrees with me, just take a trip to Queenstown and look for yourselves. Even most Rotorua people need to go to Tauranga for half decent retail therapy.

Which takes me back to Melbourne. Food, coffee, and the standard of service - simply a joy! Restaurant prices are significantly less than here which came as a complete surprise. NZ and especially Rotorua still has a long way to go on the hospitality front! It was the freshness of the ingredients that we simply don’t see here.

And I am sad to admit it. The Aussies are smart. They have marketed the Australian Tennis Open as the tennis major for the Asia/Pacific region. With two Chinese women making it to the singles semis, they got complete support from Asia for this spin on their tournament.

There is a lot to learn by looking across the ditch.

In John Key’s speech during the recent Opening of Parliament, he outlined the Government’s plans to institute a step-change in economic performance. In 2010 the focus will be on growing the economy and creating sustainable new jobs. The key features of this are detailed below:

A GROWTH-ENHANCING TAX SYSTEM

The Government agree with the Tax Working Group that our tax system has major problems with integrity, fairness, and incentives and this needs to be addressed. In Budget 2010 there will be announcements on starting to reform taxes.

The aims for tax reform

Create incentives for people to work hard, improve their skills, and get ahead.

Encourage savings and boost productivity.

Be fair to all New Zealanders.

What has been have ruled out

A land tax.

A comprehensive capital gains tax.

A risk-free return method for residential property.

The Government is committed to

Changing the way property is taxed.

Reducing personal tax rates.

No major changes to Working For Families.

Compensating low to middle income earners if GST is raised.

BETTER PUBLIC SERVICES

Driving better performance across the public sector.

Continue to move resources from the back office to improve frontline services.

Lifting the quality of public services.

ENCOURAGING INNOVATION

Helping firms grow by connecting them with our best scientists, and improving access to capital and world markets.

Science, Research, and Technology

Invest in more science and business research.

Fully roll out the Primary Growth Partnership.

Drive domestic and international research into agricultural greenhouse gas emissions.

Fund open-access food development facilities.

Reform Crown Research Institutes.

Trade

Work towards free trade agreements with the United States, India, and Korea.

Strive for conclusion of the World Ttrade Organisation’s Doha Round.

Push the Single Economic Market with Australia.

REFORMING REGULATIONS

Reducing red tape to make it easier for businesses to grow, invest, and create jobs, while protecting the environment.

Employment

Amend the Holidays Act

Seek public submissions on grievance procedures.

Environment and Resources

Drive the second phase of RMA reform.

Take action to unlock our oil resources.

Seek public submissions on extending mining on Crown-owned land.

Remove regulatory roadblocks to irrigation.

Improve aquaculture regulations.

Capital Markets

Act on the report from the Capital Markets Development Taskforce.

Progress the Securities Act Review.

Investigate developing a hub for financial services in the Asia-Pacific region.

BOOSTING INFRASTRUCTURE

Unclogging the growth arteries with better roads, broadband, electricity, and other infrastructure.

It recognises that New Zealand needs to fight on many fronts before there can be sustainable and long term growth in the economy. As New Zealand emerges from recession, focus now turns to sustainable changes to our business environment, lifting our economic performance permanently and reducing red tape and bureaucracy that stifle business growth.

The Government is determined to see through its drive in the areas listed, and achieve the first step in the necessary structural and social changes New Zealand requires to become a more stable economy long term

When you attend a business networking event such as the great Chamber BA5s there’s often a lot of conversation between business people about the great, the nearly great, and the not so good.

This could be about the weather, the best café in town or even which service provider gives the best “good ol’ fashioned service”.

We always want our business talked about in a positive way – this will lead to more business opportunities with new or existing clients and allow us to find new business joint ventures and marketing avenues.

Not knowing about positive comments in a business networking environment means we can’t thank those raving fans of our business – and what if our business is being talked about in a negative way?

Having disappointed customers who are spreading dissatisfaction amongst others is not a good thing. Often we find out too late, with our best customers leaving us for competitors and new customers being sparse on the ground.

That can happen in real life – but what has that got to do with social media like Facebook, Twitter or the other 500 social media tools (Source: http://bit.ly/9J7NtS)?

People who are into Facebook (to pick a social media platform at random) are really into Facebook. Statistics released by Facebook (Source: http://bit.ly/aSrN0U) show us how big Facebook is:

• More than 400 million active users
• 50% of active users log on to Facebook in any given day
• More than 35 million users update their status each day
• Average user spends more than 55 minutes per day on Facebook
• About 70% of Facebook users are outside the United States.

So it’s not just about the size of Facebook – it’s about your customers replacing or augmenting their social interaction at BA5s and the like for online discussions and connections.

The great news is that there are tools to search for social media conversations about you and your company and also a few ways to influence and positively enhance the conversation.

Google recently added the ability to filter search results by the type of information that you were seeking. To see the options click the “+ Show Options” button under the top of the heading after doing a search.

Try it with your own name – or your company name or brand name.

This makes it easier to see if your company or brand is getting talked about – but you may want to use another Google tool to keep a proactive watch on your brand values potentially going up or down.

Google Alerts is very much like a free newspaper clipping service (www.Google.com/alerts) and allows you to keep watch on new content and be notified of the link to the page pretty much as it happens.

You can use Google Alerts for your company name, your brands and even for key staff if they are getting talked about.

Google now also indexes Tweets from Twitter users.

More and more of your existing and potential customers are going to be using social media such as Facebook and Blogs to communicate with their circle of friends. You need to at least be watching that space to see if they are talking about you.

If you find something good you can reward and grow the positive feedback into your brand equity. If you find something bad you can have a forum for committing to apologise and demonstrate that you wish to put it right.

Contact me if you’d like to know more about how social media can work for your business.

One of the questions we get asked most often is; “What’s the market doing?” Normally I would respond with a fairly detailed analysis from our research department. This time i will give you my personal views on the subject without too much of the usual, sometimes overwhelming, data. However, I will still validate my opinion with some supporting comments to give some background and the foundation for my opinion.

For many people the last two years have been a trial. Certainty some have flourished, but many have not. It has required people from all walks of life to make tough decisions. In many cases, whether those were the right decisions still remains to be seen.

To answer the question: “What’s happening in the market?” we have to interrupt the large amount of seemingly contradictory information that bombards us.

For example; some countries appear to be recovering from the fall-out of the credit crunch, while some are not. Some market segments are doing better and some clearly aren’t. Official cash rates and interest rates are down but unemployment is up. New redundancies are warned of and yet some recruiting agencies are reporting an increase in placements. GST is going up while income taxes are due to be lowered. Real estate sales volumes are up in the larger centres while still average in the provinces.

My best guess is that the pain is not yet over. Probably not what you wanted to hear, but I believe that we are largely the makers of our own destiny. The reality is that the opportunity to grow your business is there. The questions are: “Will you, and how?”

I see six threats to Rotorua’s prosperity:

• Just not looking for and exploiting new opportunities that would better the city.
• Making the system either too slow, too hard, or too expensive for businesses to grow.
• Complacency, or taking what we already have (including our customary or historical customers) for granted. For example, I heard recently that more and more cruise ship passengers now prefer to stay in Tauranga instead of bussing to Rotoura to spend those valuable food, beverage, overnight stay and entertainment dollars.
• Abdicating; waiting for someone else to fix it or blaming someone or something out there.
• Starting strong and finishing weak or just not following through.
• Relying too heavily on credit as a way of funding daily life.

…

This means everyone, you and me, we’re all in it together. Markets like this come and go. The question is how we will handle it. And how will we be positioned when it happens again next time. For now, the real estate market is stable. Buyers are buying, but they are doing a lot of comparing before they buy. My best advice for sellers is “know the market.” Be as clinical about values as you can be and take the advice of a competent adviser.

In this, the first of three articles that I will write for the Tabloid this year, I will touch on the 2009 achievements of the Rotorua District Council. In the second article I will outline the challenges for 2010 and in the third article I will talk about RDC’s role in future-proofing our community.

The year 2009 was another productive and successful year for RDC. We faced a big challenge to provide the services that you demand at the highest quality whilst minimising costs.

Our hybrid Capital Value/Land Value rating system was introduced in July 2009. This process took approximately three years of consultation to get a fairer method of rating. We have seen new targeted rates introduced more in line with your expectation of user pays. We are holding rate increases to CPI.

We were successful to get Crown funding for the many lake water quality programmes for our four lakes: Rotorua, Rotoiti, Okareka and Rotoehu. Along with Environment Bay of Plenty and Te Arawa Lakes Trust, through the Rotorua Te Arawa Lakes Strategy Group, we are seeing many positive lakes water quality improvements. My discussions for funding with the Crown for lakes Rotoma and Tarawera have commenced. RDC’s role in the lakes water quality programme via sewerage schemes construction are well under way. All our water supplies are now ultra violet light sterilised to further add to public health safety.

Our Museum and Civic Theatre redevelopments are well under way and to be completed by September 2011 and November 2010 respectively. The Library redevelopment has been completed and by all reports you like the changes we have made.

The refocus on customer service with our refurbished centre is certainly drawing your accolades. RDC’s procurement process, the way in which we purchase goods and services, is saving more than $1 million per year.

Our public are certainly enjoying the ease with which to fly to Australia with our new trans-Tasman link to Sydney. Loadings and bookings are looking good.

RDC is advocating on your behalf for social services too. The new and improved Youth Centre at the former YWCA site has commenced its refurbishment. This will be a centre well used by teenagers for both health and welfare.

The Rotorua Safe Families Campaign has gained further traction. A contracted co-ordinator has been appointed by the Ministry of Social Development to work with the four work streams that have been developed. The campaign involves the Police, Health, MSD and non-government agencies who deliver valuable intervention programmes to reduce family violence.

We worked very closely with the Crown and iwi through the many and varied Treaty settlements. The lake beds and Crown Forest Licence land have been returned to iwi. We advocated to ensure that public access was assured as an outcome of this process.

Our Events and Venue team have been successful in bringing new events and making sure existing ones are improved. They have secured the hosting rights for three World Rugby Cup games for Rotorua in 2011. The Energy Events Centre played its part by bringing in an additional $20 million worth of conference, conventions and events for 2009.

Until next time, good business everyone.

There are proposals to modify New Zealand’s Tourist Tax Refund Scheme (TRS) to maximise benefits for retailers in Rotorua and beyond.

Fintrax provides tourist tax refund schemes in over 20 countries. It helps businesses to attract more customers and increases tourist spending. In some markets such as Singapore, Fintrax is known by the brand name Premier.

Fintrax is confident that its proposed changes to New Zealand’s tourist refund scheme could stimulate tourist spending by more than 3% a year, benefitting businesses from Cape Reinga to the Bluff.

In June 2000, the Australian Government contracted Fintrax to implement a tourist refund scheme, resulting in an 8.75% lift in tourist spending. Fintrax processed $29 million of tax refunds in 2000, which generated $200 million of additional retail spending by tourists.

We would expect approximately 5% of tourists to use the scheme here, which would mean $7.5 million in tax refunds to generate about $30 million of extra spending.

To learn more about the proposed Tax Refund Scheme, read the article by Newmarket Business Association CEO Cameron Brewer, which featured recently in the NewZealand Herald:

file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/roger.ROTCHAMBER/Local%20Settings/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/OLK29/www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10615929&pnum=0

With the recentintroduction of international flights to and from Rotorua, this scheme would significantly benefit Rotorua retailers.

Many companies are trying to do more work with fewer people and it can take a toll in terms of increased stress levels, health problems, deteriorating relationships, and weakened job performance.

When leaders are stressed, they usually don't treat themselves or others well. They consume caffeine by day, then alcohol and sleeping pills at night. They overeat or they don't eat or they eat the wrong things. Exercise drops off their to-do list. Stressed-out leaders take out their troubles on other people too. I’m sure you have all seen this.

You may feel you don't have time to exercise, eat right or re-programme your stress behaviours. But consider this: your current high level of stress may be your new normal. Here are some suggestions that may help:

How does your body react to stress? Does your heart rate go up? Do you get hot? Do you clench your jaw? Do you get headaches or stomach aches?

What about your behaviour patterns? Do you become emotional at the drop of a pin? Do you bury yourself in unnecessary detail? Do you find yourself becoming quieter, louder, meaner or more distant to others? And what about your sense of humour?

What about your impact on others? Do your people feel threatened, left in the dark, or dumped on? Do you slow down, or do you ratchet up the pressure? Do you break your commitments or take your stress out on people at home?

Athletes know that pushing themselves at 100% capacity continuously is counter-productive. They build in time to recover from their gruelling training schedules. You can do the same by taking time off work regularly – yes, regularly. On a daily basis, walk around and get some fresh air every 90 minutes. Do some deep breathing or shoulder shrugs at your desk or even just close your eyes for one minute. If you actually fall asleep doing this, it will be clear that you needed to!

Relaxing is critical for creative thinking, strong relationships, and good health. It is also essential to break away from your computer screen. Try focusing on an object outside the window, preferably a long distance away, then feel the relief on your eyes and the calming in your brain.

Research shows that leaders who are fit and healthy rate significantly higher on leadership effectiveness. Regular exercise not only improves your health - it lowers your stress levels. Proven benefits include: increased feeling of being in control, strengthened self-esteem, more controlled regulation of emotions and deeper relaxation.

Identify and focus on the most important action priorities - this quarter, this week, and today. Organise and streamline your routine tasks. Create and action a ‘stop doing list’ and eliminate or delegate low priority tasks, wherever possible.

Discuss your business activities with a mentor for that ‘arms-length’ opinion. The value of a qualified ‘outsiders’ opinion of you and your business cannot be overstated and can be immeasurably helpful in maintaining good business practices and a healthy outlook in all participants.

Turn off your computer and mobile phone during personal, family time or any other time not devoted directly to your business. Try and restrict your business activities to regular business hours and delegate after-hours-responsibilities to others on a regular scheduled basis.

If the people you love are truly important to you, then be available to return the compliment – in good health and spirit.

With a name change from Employment Choices to the Chamber Return2Work Programme, the free recruitment service offered by the Chamber to our valued members is now in its fourth year. Last year was a very good year for placements, resulting in Rotorua recording the highest placement numbers in New Zealand, for all the Chambers who currently operate this programme.

Despite government cuts, the Return2Work programme was seen to be highly valuable in helping people recognise their transferable skills and as a consequence, market themselves more appropriately to employers.

As set out below, our candidates are of a very high quality, and employers are extremely satisfied with the hassle free, cost free service provided by the Chamber.