Cyclone Pam update #1

Cyclone Pam warning links for the Coromandel

We will be using our Facebook page to share important updates. You don't have to sign up to Facebook to see what all our Facebook users around the Coromandel are sharing about the impacts of the storm in their areas. Click on this link to see our Facebook page now:

https://www.facebook.com/ThamesCoromandelDistrictCouncil

We are also going to let anyone who wishes take a look at our unconfirmed information from contractors, staff, elected members, call centre callers and more. We use an electronic whiteboard that you can see here: http://coromandelemergency.weebly.com

This electronic whiteboard is an online replica of the whiteboards used by our Civil Defence teams in an emergency. It also has links to pages that show the status of power outages, state highway closures, the MetService rain radar for the Coromandel, rainfall readings and the Thames Valley Civil Defence website which provides all the information you need to get redy and get thru in an emergency.

If you life and property is in danger always call 111.

For other local issues, please call our call centre on 07 868 0200.

Alerting tourists with geo-targeting

We have been working with GeoZone overnight to use its Geo-targeting technology to deliver warnings about cyclone Pam direct to tourists.

At 8:00am there were 1325 tourists in the affected areas using one of the free GPS enabled travel apps managed by GeoZone. These are apps such as CamperMate, the Maui app, Britz app, Jucy app, Wicked Campers App and 12 others. The messages have been delivered in English, German, Chinese or French depending on the users language settings and are displayed as a text based notification.

"Tourists are difficult to contact as they are often on the road for weeks at a time, however using technology we can deliver relevant messages based on their exact location" says GeoZone founder and CEO Adam Hutchinson.

"It was important to use this technology in order to inform unsuspecting tourists about the cyclone, some may not have know about it or speak English," Hutchinson said.

Thames-Coromandel District Council Public Information Manager (PIM) for emergencies, Drew Mehrtens, says working with the GeoZone team to geo-target relevant messages has been extremely useful.

"We've been able to reach a large number of tourists in a new way with our safety information," he says. "Tourists are notoriously difficult to reach with safety messages in general, but not only have we been able to reach over a thousand of them this morning, we were also able to use the GPS-enabled apps to target Coromandel visitors with an even more specific message, pointing them toour local Facebook page so they can find out which parts of the Coromandel become affected during the oncoming storm."

Kate Meldrum, Head of Customer Experience at Tourism Holdings states "many tourists are now using a smartphone during their travels, so targeting messages based on their location is an effective way to reach our customers with safety information."

We are grateful to GeoZone for being willing to work with us to explore the opportunity this technology presents to provide safety information to tourists throughout their travels on the Coromandel and in New Zealand.

ENDS

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