Although the headlines proclaim that Jasons took a profit hit with net profit falling by 31% to $553,000, we note that revenue has increased 4.2% to $14.6 million in a relatively competitive and tough market.
Interestingly the decrease in profitability has been blamed on reduced advertising by customers in the 2009/10 local guides and continued losses in Australia.
So what of the future? Jasons chairman Geoff Burns comments:
"The company is expecting stable performance in revenues, cash flow and profitability in 2010-11. An updated forecast will be presented at the annual meeting on July 28th. This will include considerably enhanced online plans for Jasons.com, restructure of the company’s business model in Australia and progress on the core print product sales."Dead tree marketing is not sexy or trendy, however the Jasons Motels, Apartments and Motor Lodges Directory is still an important marketing tool for the motel industry. There seems to be no debate that marketing is moving more online, however there is still a substantial investment by the New Zealand travel industry in effective paper based marketing collateral.
The internet is space where travel media companies will need to offer more innovative solutions and clip the ticket if they are to survive. We look forward to finding out what the "considerably enhanced online plans for Jasons.com" will be.
