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Spark has announced a fresh and simplified new approach to roaming, with seven day packs designed to make travel easier and offer greater cost certainty and bang for buck.

Spark CEO of Home, Mobile and Business, Jason Paris, said, “We know staying connected while overseas on holiday or business is massively important to New Zealanders. We’ve spoken at length to our customers, listened to what they said, and designed new roaming plans to meet their real travel needs. As a result, we’re confident this is our best offer yet for the way New Zealanders really do travel.”

The new Spark roaming packs offer seven days of roaming across 33 destinations for just $20 (buying 500MB, 200 incoming and 200 outgoing minutes, and 200 texts) or $15 (buying 500MB data) and are available to Spark Business, Prepay and Pay Monthly customers.”

Paris said, “Most Kiwis don’t just travel for a day but for an average of five days at a time, so weekly packs are a much better fit for their roaming needs than other options. We also know nearly a third of customers travel to more than one destination each trip, so roaming that works across the countries they travel to makes life much easier. To cap it off, we’ve been able to cover the places that matter, including 17 of the top 20 places New Zealanders travel to. No more zones, just an awesome single price for heaps of data, texts and minutes around the world.”

Spark has seen roaming data use jump by nearly 60% over the past year across its most popular travel destinations. Over the same time, the number of New Zealand residents travelling abroad has risen by 11.5% according to Statistics New Zealand. This highlights the significant growth in demand for roaming services – a trend Spark expects to accelerate in coming years as the global travel boom continues.

“New Zealanders are more and more travel-hungry and people are now reliant on their mobile phones when travelling. We use our smart phones for dozens of things, like finding our way around a new city, searching for restaurants, keeping appointments and checking in with friends and colleagues. Customers need to know they can roam without worrying about a huge bill. These new roaming packs cater for that, they’re incredible value, working out at around $2.85 a day when spread across seven days, and much better suited to a digital world where people need to stay connected.”

Paris added that the allocations in the new packs deliver enough for a roamer to do the things one might typically need to do while travelling: “For example, when we’ve tested it using navigation apps, we’ve found these apps usually use less than 5MB per hour – so 500MB should easily be enough to help you find your way around for a week.

“For us this is about helping unleash the potential of New Zealanders, no matter where they are in the world.”

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BusinessNZ today released its Election Manifesto.

Based on a survey of employers throughout New Zealand-, the Manifesto outlines seven priorities that business would like to see enacted after the 2017 General Election.

BusinessNZ Chief Executive Kirk Hope said businesses want a Government that will reduce taxes, fix problem legislation, and boost growth in the regions.

“Business wants to see a tax cut for all categories of taxpayer early in the first term of the new Government, and no new taxes of any kind.”

Mr Hope said employers in many sectors were worried about being unable to fill job vacancies, and wanted action on skills.

“They are unhappy with the level of skills coming out of the education system and want those skill gaps fixed by education and, if necessary, immigration. They want employees with better technical skills to help to grow more innovative and sustainable businesses.”

Local government and the Resource Management Act were also a key concern
“There’s a strong view that the RMA is holding the country back – 95 percent of businesses surveyed want it fixed or gone.”

Businesses were also concerned about local government investing rates money in council-controlled enterprises and non-essential spending, while failing to invest in infrastructure. 65 percent wanted local government to stick to core functions like providing infrastructure.

Kirk Hope said business wanted a Government that continued negotiating free trade agreements to reduce the tariff burden on New Zealand exporters. A large majority want trade agreements with the US, UK, EU and the new TPP-11.

“These seven priorities if enacted by a new Government would improve the environment for enterprise and help business to create jobs and prosperity in local communities all over New Zealand.”

The Election Manifesto is here on www.businessnz.org.nz