~ Pioneer publisher of tourism focused destination web sites since 1997 ~

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byronbay.com : History

1997 The byron-bay.com (byronbay.com) web site has been online since the end of 1997, attracting advertisers since early 1998. Back in those days, local businesses weren't too interested in the Internet - even our "Free till the end of the year" offer was turned down by many.

1998 Persistence, innovation, hard work and a clear focus paid off - by the end of 1998 we had over 50 advertisers with the site having been visited over 80,000 times. Our achievements in '98 won us an Award of Encouragement in the regional tourism awards.

1999 The byron-bay.com web site was visited over 220,000 times and had about 100 advertisers. This time we won the regional tourism award in the media category. Mid 1999, Rick Slater and Rick Christian formed the company travelpromote.com.au PTY LTD which currently publishes a network of popular Australian travel related web sites.

2000 The byron-bay.com web site was visited over 550,000 times and had about 200 advertisers. With the ever increasing work load and family commitments, instead of entering the regional tourism awards - we sponsored one of the categories.

2001 The byron-bay.com web site was visited over 895,000 times and had about 300 advertisers. A focus of 2001 was to develop a range of new features for byronbay.com and a range of new advertising options to be implemented in 2002.

2002 The byron-bay.com web site was visited over 940,000 times and had almost 400 advertisers. New features introduced included www.bestofbyron.com for our Premium Package advertisers, streaming video clips, downloadable Byron Bay screen saver, a quality map of Byron Bay, and more...

2003 The byron-bay.com web site was visited over 1.24 million times and had about 450 advertisers. A focus of 2003 was to increase our support of local events and community groups. We provided; promotion, web design, hosting, office space & equipment, graphic design, advise, and financial support to a wide variety of local events and groups. In late 2003 we moved to larger, more central office space on Jonson St in the centre of Byron Bay.

2004 The byron-bay.com web site was visited over 1.46 million time. As of 1 May 2004, the byron-bay.com and associated web sites are managed, maintained and marketed by the company byronbay.com PTY LTD. Our network of Byron Bay web sites and services expanded to include; Byron Style Accommodation & the Byron Bay Real Estate Portal. We also partnered in launching Looking After Byron.

2005 Aquiring a few more well established 'Byron' websites, we now talk in total 'Byron' traffic - which went above 2 million visits in '05! Our association with Byron Style Accommodation has helped Style grow in leaps & bounds... confirming our theory that some people want to book direct and some want to use a booking service (in Byron we see 80% book direct, 20% use a booking service).

2006 Tourism in Byron experienced a slowdown throughout much of 2006, picking up again towards the end of the year. This resulted in a drop in our Byron traffic of about 15% to about 1.75 million visits (under the circumstances we're happy with these results). On November 1 2006, roamfree.com became a partner - ensuring an exciting future where we can continue to attract and satisfy our visitors through increased distribution and better technology.

2007 Our group of 'Byron' websites recoreded their 10 millionth visit towards the end of May.

2008 All was well with our JV partners and us for the first half of the year. The GFC hit late in the year and we began the process of seperating with them. A lot of the economic uncertainty flowed through to the 'travel' industry.

2009 The downturn resulted in a 3.6% decline in visitors. In April we bought out our JV partners of Byron Bay Accommodation PTY LTD. In October we bought out our JV partners of byronbay.com PTY LTD. We look forward to finishing up 2009 as 100% owners of our 'Byron' wbsites.

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