100% Pure New Zealand in Google Earth

As I was learning about the Darfur crisis in Google Earth yesterday, I stumbled across the 100% Pure New Zealand layer located under Travel and Tourism.

100% Pure New Zealand is a Google Earth layer provided by the official Tourism New Zealand website, 100% Pure New Zealand, and includes detailed information about various destinations on the North and South Islands of New Zealand.

The layer is divided into the following sub-layers:

• Destinations - brief descriptions about NZ towns and cities with links to the 100% Pure New Zealand website.
• Scenic Highligths - brief descriptions of lakes, parks, mountains, etc. with links to the 100% Pure New Zealand website.
• Visitor Centres - all official Visitor Centres are marked on the map, except you’ll need to zoom in pretty close and in some cases disable the destinations layer in order to spot them.

You can spice the whole thing up with Google Earth’s usual Wikipedia entries and more importantly Panoramio photos, both of which you can switch on or off under Geographic Web.

I haven’t been able to get confirmed, if New Zealand is the first country to have such a layer. But as I don’t see any other country under Travel and Tourism, I’ll have to assume that it is.

I think, it is very clever marketing by the NZ Tourism body. I’m in no position to know where Google wish to take this, nor do I know, if the NZ body paid Google for the inclusion, but as a traveller I like the development (provided the sources remain clearly stated). If other countries were to follow NZ’s lead, Google Earth could become an essential tool for travellers researching their next destination - or at least for this traveller.

Technorati Tags: travel, New Zealand, Google Earth

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