Waikato Business News April/May 2023

More documents

Recommendations

Info

8 WAIKATO BUSINESS NEWS, APRIL/MAY 2023 Attracting international business, events and leisure travellers Following another unusual tourism summer season, Hamilton & Waikato Tourism (HWT) and our operators are now in the thick of the ‘trade season’ – when we actively market the Mighty Waikato to the world. ‘Trade season’ refers to the time of year when we market and sell our region, products, services and new visitor experiences to the travel trade – wholesalers, inbound tour operators, travel agents and online retailers. The travel trade plays a significant role in attracting international visitors to New Zealand and the Waikato region by encouraging travelers to spend more time exploring what we have to offer. Following the pandemic, independent travellers are still organising and planning their own trips directly online, however the travel trade remains important in reaching larger numbers of potential international visitors, particularly in our long-haul markets such as Europe, United States, Canada, China, Japan and South America, plus our number one visitor market, Australia. By establishing relationships with key operators and agencies, and engaging a mix of distribution partners, we help our region and tourism operators tap into an effective channel to market and reach target consumers. At the same time, our team are engaging with the conference, meetings, events, exhibition and travel incentive sector, talking about the benefits of meeting and doing business in the Mighty Waikato. The business event and convention market is key to the continued success of our region. Not only do conference delegates spend more than the leisure traveller but evidence also indicates they are likely to return for a holiday with family and friends if they have a favorable experience while attending their conference. The expo will attract hundreds of buyers from across the globe ranging from established markets like Australia, the USA, UK as well as emerging tourism markets. Key events that form foundations for this time of year include the eXplore trade show being held in Auckland, TRENZ (Tourism Rendezvous New Zealand) in Christchurch and MEETINGS in Wellington. The eXplore show is one of the largest trade events for NZ-based inbound tour operators, wholesalers and travel agents. This year’s event was the first back since 2019 due to the pandemic and included more than 100 tourism businesses from across the Central North Island exhibiting their experiences, accommodation and tours to over 180 travel trade representatives. Joining HWT from the Mighty Waikato were 11 operators including Hobbiton Movie Set, Discover Waitomo, Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari, Riverside Adventures, Hamilton Gardens, Novotel Tainui Hamilton, Castaways Resort, The Red Barn, Cornerstone Alpaca, Spellbound Waitomo and Hidden Lake Hotel. This show is a key activity of Explore Central North Island (ECNI) which is a marketing collective of eight regions including Hauraki-Coromandel, Bay of Plenty, Tairawhiti-Gisborne, Hawke’s Bay, Ruapehu, Great Lake Taupo, Rotorua, and Hamilton & Waikato. We work together to actively promote our regions and experiences to international tourism trade – a strong force which positions the best of the North Island. After four years, the most significant international business-to-business travel trade event on New Zealand’s tourism events calendar, TRENZ, is returning. The expo will attract hundreds of buyers from across the globe ranging from established markets like Australia, the USA, UK as well as emerging tourism markets. Each exhibitor will undertake over 50 15-minute meetings over three days. Trade ready operators in attendance alongside HWT include Hobbiton Movie Set, Discover Waitomo, Waitomo Adventures, Roselands Resort, Hamilton Gardens, and The Red Barn. MEETINGS is the only national tradeshow in New Zealand for the business events industry. Held in June each year, this two-day event brings together hundreds of buyers and sellers of conference and incentive travel, from across NZ, Australia and further afield to grow mutual business events opportunities and share knowledge and ideas. The Mighty Waikato will be there in force in 2023 with Claudelands Conference & Exhibition Centre, Novotel Tainui Hamilton, Discover Waitomo, Hamilton Gardens, Hobbiton Movie Set, Jet Park TELLING WAIKATO’S STORY BY NICOLA GREENWELL Chief Executive, Hamilton & Waikato Tourism Hotel Hamilton Airport, The Red Barn and our HWT business events team all attending. Feedback from the travel trade and business events buyers continues to be positive about the Mighty Waikato as they are excited to build or renew relationships, hear about the new products and experiences emerging across our region. Our region is well positioned to take advantage of our growing popularity as a ‘mustvisit’ destination on traveller itineraries and business events calendars, and we continue to work hard to maximise the positive economic and community benefits that our visitors bring to the Waikato.
WAIKATO BUSINESS NEWS, APRIL/MAY 2023 9 Building Responsible Artificial Intelligence (AI) - Ensuring the Trustworthiness and Security of Enterprise Applications Responsible AI The emergence of AI is revolutionising the landscape of business operations, prompting numerous organisations to explore the potential of AI to enhance their efficiency and gain a competitive edge. As AI advancements rapidly evolve, there is an increasing need for regulations to ensure the reliability of AI systems and prevent any harm they may cause. For instance, recent news reports indicate that Samsung workers made a significant mistake by utilising ChatGPT which has now been banned in Italy due to privacy concerns. In addition to worrying about data security, individuals using AI tools, such as ChatGPT, frequently ask themselves whether the answers provided by AI that appear to be correct are actually accurate. As users, it can be challenging to discern the correctness of AI-generated answers. In certain instances, an erroneous response from AI may result in significant adverse effects. Therefore, after being dazzled by the remarkable capabilities of AI tools like ChatGPT, it seems necessary for us to take a step back and consider how to build responsible AI. Some companies, such as Microsoft, a partner of OpenAI, have proposed responsible AI principles to govern the design, building, and testing of machine learning models to ensure fairness, inclusiveness, reliability, safety, security, transparency, and accountability. Additionally, Microsoft has unveiled the Azure OpenAI service on its Azure cloud platform. The Azure OpenAI service, which provides programmatic access to OpenAI language models, is now generally available and includes support for chat interactions with the GPT model. Microsoft has integrated OpenAI models with various services, including Bing, GitHub Copilot, and Microsoft 365, and is exploring the potential of using ChatGPT in enterprise-grade applications on the Azure service. Restrict information only to those who are involved Incorporating AI services such as ChatGPT in enterprise-grade applications requires stringent demands on data security and the accuracy of the AI-generated content. By using Azure OpenAI, customers can leverage the same models as OpenAI while benefiting from the security features of Microsoft Azure, such as private networking and regional availability. Microsoft said it is hosting the OpenAI models on its Azure infrastructure, and all customer data sent to Azure OpenAI remains within the service. The prompts and completion data may be stored temporarily by the Azure OpenAI Service in the same region as the resource for a maximum of 30 days. It is important to note that this data is not sent to OpenAI, and it does not use customer data to train, retrain, or improve the models in the Azure OpenAI Service. Figure 1 Source: Microsoft Moreover, to ensure data security and reliability, users can integrate Azure OpenAI service with other Azure services. For example, Microsoft demonstrated a demo where it integrated Azure OpenAI with Azure Cognitive Search service. The data of the knowledge base is stored in an Azure Cognitive Search index, which allows the implementation of various building blocks for security and filtering, such as document-level granular access control. In the demo, information about the project of an office move to enhance team collaboration is restricted to involved members only. If someone who is not involved types "Is there a move or office space change coming?", the AI-generated response will be "I don't know," indicating that no documents are available that provide information about the project. Generate trustworthy responses and prevent abuse and harmful content Another consideration for using AI in enterprise applications is how we can make responses trustworthy and prevent abusive and harmful content. One approach to ensuring trustworthiness is to cite the resources used to generate responses. In the demo from Microsoft mentioned earlier, it provides source citations for the facts presented, users can validate the information and gain confidence in the accuracy of the response. TECH TALK BY JIADONG CHEN Jiadong Chen is a cloud architect at Waikato software specialist Company-X and a Microsoft Most Valued Professional. Iconic 3D building a first for Southern Hemisphere The first commercial building built from 3D printed concrete in the southern hemisphere has been completed in Hamilton, New Zealand. The new Creators Forest Lake building embraces indoor-outdoor flow, featuring textured concrete walls and large sliding doors on the kitchen to give the teachers the option to open or close rooms off from the outside, or increase their play-space and serve food and drinks directly outside. Completed on time through the peak of post-COVID supply chain issues by Iconic Construction Ltd, general manager Johnny Gordon says using QOROX walls was a massive time-saver due to the quick printing and setting time. “There was a seven-day turnaround from the 3DCP walls being printed to being fully installed and filled, using QOROX’s game-changing technology. It was impressive, particularly when you compare it with traditional masonry blocks or timber methods,” Gordon says. “Six sections of QOROX 3D printed walls at a combined length of 15 metres long and three metres high, were printed in under five hours. Within the space of a day and a half, we had an entire length of wall finished inside and out.” Gordon says the time saving was noticed by other trades on site, particularly the quick wall installation, which was completed in just two and a half days by two people. QOROX founder Wafaey Swelim says the speed of construction was due to the innovative technology and the construction “ink”, made from 80 percent of material sourced in New Zealand. Gordon says being able to build texture into the wall design brings architectural interest into the space, while also being functional. “You don’t often think of concrete as warm and welcoming, but having the texture allows us to bring personality into each wall, and also serve a functional purpose to hold and transfer heat which is great for all seasons.” “We were so impressed by the 3D printed concrete texture, that we added it into the kitchen island facade along with a curved edge.” The next development by Iconic is already in the pipeline, with Iconic and QOROX working with local designers to bring to life the possibilities of 3D printing in New Zealand commercial and residential construction. Figure 2 Source: Microsoft Preventing abusive and harmful content requires a more proactive approach. This is where content filtering comes in. The content management system of the Azure OpenAI Service screens out potentially harmful content by running the input prompt and generated completion through a series of classification models. If harmful content is detected, the system either returns an error or flags the response as having gone through content filtering. In summary, ensuring trustworthiness and preventing abusive content are crucial considerations when using AI in enterprise applications. By citing sources and utilizing content filtering, these applications can provide accurate and reliable responses while maintaining a safe and respectful environment for all users. IP protection, simplified. We’ve been championing innovation since 1979. A safe pair of hands delivering outstanding results. jamesandwells.com
Page 1 and 2: APRIL/MAY 2023 VOLUME 31 ISSUE 4 RE
Page 3 and 4: WAIKATO BUSINESS NEWS, APRIL/MAY 20
Page 5 and 6: We control such a significant numbe
Page 7: Resene has been a long term partner
Page 11 and 12: How will AI impact your business? I
Page 17 and 18: PropertY & development A WAIKATO BU
Page 23 and 24: us work in this industry.” Both T
Page 29 and 30: Alaska delivers high-end fitout for

Waikato Business News April/May 2023

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?