Beaches And Beyond Boom for Retail Sales

Posted on by

Beaches And Beyond Boom for Retail Sales

Auckland 25 February, 2014. Tourism Australia together with Tourism Events Queensland and retail partner House of Travel are the first week into a beaches and beyond campaign promoting the regions of Queensland as the destination of choice for Kiwis seeking a winter sun escape. The coming weeks will reveal a showcase of experiences and great value offers from the Southern Great Barrier Reef, Tropical North Queensland, Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast.

House of Travels Commercial Director Brent Thomas reported the first week as being the most successful Gold Coast campaign that the chain had been involved in for three years. Thomas attributes the success not just to targeting the right audience across multiple platforms; radio, print and digital but also advocacy.

The campaigns advocacy element is through Coast radios top rating breakfast show personality, Brian Kelly. Tourism Australias Jenny Aitken says that advocacy is a key driver for Australia sharing their stories with Kiwis who love to hear from real people within their peer groups. Before embarking on the campaign, Brian travelled to a number of the featured locations in Queensland to gain first hand experience in the destinations being featured.

Aitken says the public response to the campaign so far backs up Tourism Australias earlier consumer research suggesting Australian beaches, particularly those around Queenslands Tropical North, Whitsundays and Gold Coast are considered some of the best in the world.

Kiwis already love Queenslands beaches as a holiday escape, and now, with this campaign theyre really beginning to appreciate that the state has a huge variety of other attractions, events and activities that are really worth visiting for.

Add to that the fact that Australia represents an excellent holiday option in terms of value for money for New Zealanders, with great opportunities for shopping and excellent restaurants, and we should continue to reap great rewards from the campaign, she says.

Tourism & Events Queenslands New Zealand Manager, Sally Holyer says the beaches and beyond theme perfectly captures the essence of a great Queensland holiday. Yes, we have the great beaches, but also some amazing, and very different experiences all within a one hour drive zone of the beach. Sally cites food and wine trails, shopping, nature and wildlife experiences as being standouts for the hinterland regions of the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast.

Its something of a journey of discovery for even the most seasoned of travellers who know our regions for their beaches and islands but are amazed to discover what lies just a little way beyondits like two holidays in one.

House of Travels Brent Thomas says the group is expecting a good year with New Zealanders expressing an early propensity to spend. And when it comes to spending on travel, Australia is and will forever be their number one. We are seeing three key things trending early in the year, all of which have been very evident in the booking decisions around this Queensland campaign.

More:

Beaches And Beyond Boom for Retail Sales

Erie's cold, snowy winter could be a 'blessing'

Posted on by

That snow and ice you've been hating all winter could mean better beaches and fewer bugs this summer.

"It actually does have some real benefits," Harry Leslie, operations manager at Presque Isle State Park, said.

A record-setting season has kept Erie-area residents bundled up in winter wear and busy shoveling.

But the frigid, precipitation-heavy conditions can be a boon for the outdoors we enjoy once the weather warms.

Ice and snow can protect parts of the environment, possibly deter invasive species and even create more recreational opportunities for humans.

Leslie said the ice came early and thick to the peninsula this year, helping protect the park from wave erosion.

The beautiful ice dunes that form along the shore are good at preventing the beaches from losing sand.

But, Leslie cautioned that while helpful, the hollow ice dunes are dangerous to climb on.

The snow that's also been piling up on shore is good news because Leslie said it stops sand from being blown away by the wind.

"Complete snow cover has been a real blessing," he said.

See the original post here:

Erie's cold, snowy winter could be a 'blessing'

What Moons of What Planets Are Larger Than Pluto & Mercury? : Planets & Astronomy – Video

Posted on by


What Moons of What Planets Are Larger Than Pluto Mercury? : Planets Astronomy
Subscribe Now: http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=ehoweducation Watch More: http://www.youtube.com/ehoweducation Pluto and Mercury are two o...

By: eHowEducation

Visit link:

What Moons of What Planets Are Larger Than Pluto & Mercury? : Planets & Astronomy - Video

What Are the Planets in Order From Shortest Period of Revolution to Longes… : Planets & Astronomy – Video

Posted on by


What Are the Planets in Order From Shortest Period of Revolution to Longes... : Planets Astronomy
Subscribe Now: http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=ehoweducation Watch More: http://www.youtube.com/ehoweducation We commonly think of planet...

By: eHowEducation

Read the original post:

What Are the Planets in Order From Shortest Period of Revolution to Longes... : Planets & Astronomy - Video

Stargazers dazzled by the excitement of astronomy in Bishop Auckland

Posted on by

Stargazers dazzled by the excitement of astronomy in Bishop Auckland

11:29am Sunday 2nd March 2014 in News By Lizzie Anderson

SUN spots, distant galaxies and the art of space photography were the focus of a special event to mark the start of National Astronomy Week in the region.

Bishop Auckland Astronomical Society held an open day at the County Durham towns Community Fire Station yesterday (Saturday, March 1) to inspire more people to discover the wonders of the night sky.

As well as a talk on how to take up the pastime, the event featured a stunning astronomical photography slide show and a chance to try out the societys telescopes.

These included an H Alpha telescope, which has a special filter to allow observers to examine the surface of the sun.

Duane Cox, who co-founded the society in March 2011, said television shows such as BBC Twos Stargazing Live had boosted the popularity of amateur astronomy in recent years.

Stargazing Live has certainly helped and that is what we are trying to do today, he said. We want to show people there are other things to do aside from football and watching television.

Astronomy is a fascinating hobby and a great way to make new friends.

Membership to the society is free, as are the majority of its monthly meetings, which feature talks by eminent professors and passionate amateurs in the field.

More:

Stargazers dazzled by the excitement of astronomy in Bishop Auckland

Astronomer offers a chance to study the stars

Posted on by

Astronomer offers a chance to study the stars

9:55am Friday 28th February 2014 in News

The galaxy M82 with the supernova marked. When this picture was taken, the exploding star was giving out as much light as all the other stars in the galaxy combined.

AN astronomer based near Malvern is offering local residents the chance to visit his observatory to mark National Astronomy Week.

Chris Baddiley, who lives at Mathon will be inviting people who are curious about the universe to come along in the evenings fromThursday, March 6, to Saturday, March 8, and, weather permitting, to observe some of the marvels of the night sky.

He said: "The weather has been pretty bad recently, but even if it's not clear, I can show visitors the images I've taken in recent years and talk about astronomy."

Dr Baddiley has been a keen observer of celestial events for many year, photographing stars and galaxies, eclipses, meteor showers and other objects and events. He has also been a keen campaigner against light pollution and rund a astronomy course for the U3A..

Despite challenging weather, he has managed in recent months to photograph Comet Lovejoy in December, and last month, a supernova or exploding star in the galaxy M82, 12 million light years away.

Read more from the original source:

Astronomer offers a chance to study the stars

Boffins say dark matter found with X-ray

Posted on by

Ten ways to transform your business in a digital economy

Two teams working on the search for dark matter have independently suggested the search could concentrate at a specific X-ray wavelength, following study of data collected by the XMM-Newton space observatory.

While it's not a proof of anything just yet, the two groups one from the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics, the other from the Netherlands' Leiden Observatory have spotted a spectrographic line in X-rays at 3.5 kiloelectron volts, and this line is observed across 73 galaxy clusters.

Readers familiar with particle physics discoveries such as the search for the Higgs boson will be aware that identifying possible energies is a big thing to particle hunters. It's an interface between the theoretician and the experimentalist: If particle W exists, its decay should emit Particles X and Y, carrying energy Z.

What's intriguing the scientists is this: that particular energy doesn't match anything we already know about what generates galactic X-rays. Science quotes one of the scientists, Maxim Markevitch of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, as putting it this way: We could not match it with anything that would come from a thermal plasma.

Markevitch was part of the Harvard-Smithsonian group, whose paper's lead author is Esra Bulbul. Their paper (Arxiv) states On the origin of this line, we argue that there should be no atomic transitions in thermal plasma at this energy which suggests that some other particle interaction is at work.

The Perseus cluster in false colour. Image: NASA

The Leiden group's paper says Although for individual objects it is hard to exclude the possibility that the feature is due to an instrumental effect or an atomic line of anomalous brightness, it is consistent with the behaviour of a line originating from the decay of dark matter particles.

Bulbul's paper suggests that the lines may come from the decay of an exotic form of neutrino, a sterile neutrino, while acknowledging the problems with this hypothesis.

Sterile neutrinos have been put forward as a possible candidate for dark matter, and would exist only if an active neutrino morphed into a sterile form. The sterile neutrino could then decay into a kEv-range photon and a normal neutrino. According to Science, if the original sterile neutrino started out at around 7 kEv, its decay could yield an X-ray with the right energy to produce the lines observed by the two groups.

Read the original post:

Boffins say dark matter found with X-ray

Neumont Capstone Project: John Rowley-Artificial Intelligence Plays Risk – Video

Posted on by


Neumont Capstone Project: John Rowley-Artificial Intelligence Plays Risk
The work featured in this video was created by Neumont University BSCS Student John Rowley for his Capstone Project in December 2013. Interviewed by BSGD Fac...

By: neumontuniversity

Follow this link:

Neumont Capstone Project: John Rowley-Artificial Intelligence Plays Risk - Video