'More hits than Motown' at Education New Zealand website

More information, more features, more value to users: that's the call from Robert Stevens, chief executive of Education New Zealand, about his organisation's revamped website that went live last month.

"In the dynamic and competitive world of international education, we have to play every possible card to get onto students' radar. This new revamped site builds on the excellent work achieved by the old site, whilst providing more information, more features and more value to users," Mr Stevens said.

The website www.newzealandeducated.com contains an extensive database of institution and course profiles, with a selection of ways to search this information; a wealth of general information about what it is like to study in New Zealand; a wide range of Alumni (graduate) and student profiles that show others' experience in New Zealand.

It also has links to a map of New Zealand and background information. The new site supersedes mynzed.com, which had been in operation for four years.

"It's not all about electronic glitz for the sake of it. Prospective students are making judgements between New Zealand and competing countries right from the start - and the electronic impression we make is a critical first interface," Mr Stevens said.

The website had been a valuable and well-used portal for overseas students. Since the original site went live, it had had over 31 million hits. In the last month alone, 45,000 visitors opened 1.2 million pages of the base site, and a high percentage went on to the sites of the 250 plus participating institutions.

"The site has had more hits than Motown," Mr Stevens said.