AUCKLAND (Pacific Media Watch): A Niuean businesswoman emphasises the importance of a visible internet presence as key to running a company on the island of Niue.
“Having the internet on Niue, just having IT, really bridges the gap between Niue – an isolated nation – and the world globally,” TaniRose Fakaotimanava-Lui told Pacific Media Watch.
In October 2011, TaniRose started up her own skincare range called Hei Niue using honey native to Niue in her products.
Although she stressed her company was still young, she said she had received quite a bit of interest in her company so far – an interest the young Niuean woman said was largely attributable to the company website.
“That’s the only way from Niue [that] we can market our products and create global awareness of what we have and what we can offer,” she said.
"We started out with $26...With the $26 came containers and then some of the ingredients we had. We used natural ingredients from Niue.
"We just went out and tried it at one of the national constitution show days, and we made $80 from there, and we just took little steps from there," TaniRose said about starting up her business.
Internet Niue
TaniRose’s husband, Emani Fakaotimanava-Lui, is one of the internet pioneers of Niue. Through his company Internet Niue, he has helped set up free, albeit not very fast, wireless internet connection to 13 of the 14 villages of the country.
Niue’s population has decreased from about 5000 to only about 1400 people currently.
Emani told Pacific Media Watch he hoped more companies would set up websites so that the current trend of a declining population might be reversed.
He also said that in today’s globalised world, internet was no longer a luxury, but a “necessity”.
He vowed to continue helping his home nation of Niue in developing its internet infrastructure.
He said the next step for Niue now was “to improve the bandwidth and increase the capacity to be able to cater for more services that are coming out, and also the devices that are being used on the island and more people coming online”.
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Listen to the full interview with TaniRose Fakaotimanava-Lui and Emani Fakaotimanava-Lui – transcript below:
Daniel Drageset (DD), contributing editor of Pacific Media Watch: Can you first explain what your job is?
Emani Fakaotimanava-Lui (EFL), CEO of Internet Niue: My job I have an IT company based on Niue, called RockET Systems. Our main task is to operate the internet service on behalf of Internet Niue, so we look after all the internet services using wireless and we service about 95 per cent of the country. Right now we have covered 13 villages out of 14 villages on Niue. Apart from that we run an IT shop in town [Alofi] and we offer some computers to people, tourists to come in and check their emails. We repair computers, order IT products, consumables and everything else. And we also do websites.
DD: So what challenges are there in doing this from Niue?
EFL: From Niue, the main challenge is especially ordering parts. We only have one airline, but now we have a second airline every fortnight. And also the delay in the shipments coming through sometimes. The flights are all booked up, so there’s no air freight, and also the sea freight comes every three weeks, so you’d have to run everything with spare. If something breaks – especially for the ISP [Internet Service Provider] – there shouldn’t be any delays, so we run spare. We’ve got stocks. So that is the problem with having an IT company in a small, isolated place. The other thing as well, trying to assist people and offer a better service, usually we can’t because of the satellite connectivity issues. It’s quite costly to run it, so we really can’t do much in terms of offering a service that people would be used to like in New Zealand.
DD: How dependent is Niue on internet would you say?
EFL: Before we used to not be dependent, but now a lot of the people use it for communications, because we only have 1000 plus people living on Niue. The majority of the people, 20,000 plus live outside Niue, especially in Auckland, New Zealand, so they use internet as a communications tool and also for sharing news, photographs, especially things like Facebook, YouTube, and a lot of it is used by students for educational purposes, research. Also, now we have Kiwibank on Niue, so all of the transactions are done online and things like that, so it’s really important. It’s a part of life, not like before. [What was] a luxury is now a necessity.
DD: I know Tonga got broadband recently. How is the situation in Niue?
EFL: Well, for Tonga it’s different in terms of population. Our population is only 1300 to 1600, so we can’t demand for such thing as [a] fibre [-optic internet cable]. We can, but who would really pay for such an amount to bring fibre under the sea to an island of 1300 to 1600 people. It just doesn’t add up in terms of economic benefits to the people. The people would end up paying a hundred times more for the services as compared to Tonga with their population.
DD: So you’re saying inevitably you will have slower internet from Niue?
EFL: We have slow internet right now because of the type of traffic that is being used. A lot of people before didn’t have internet in their homes, but because of our coverage that we have expanded – the coverage is now all over the island – so, the demand is a lot more, including mobile devices. Before we used to only have computers, but now we have tablets, iPads, iPhones, iTouch, kids are downloading music, and all these other applications and services that people are demanding, so it’s created a demand, more demand on the service we provide to the people of Niue, and we’re looking at ways on how to improve the service.
DD: What is the next step for the internet of Niue now?
EFL: It’s basically to improve the bandwidth and increase the capacity to be able to cater for more services that are coming out, and also the devices that are being utilised on the island and more people coming online.
DD: How is it to run a company website from Niue? What challenges and opportunities are there being an isolated island?
TaniRose Fakaotimanava-Lui (TRFL), founder of Niuean skincare company Hei Niue: Having the internet on Niue, just having IT, really bridges the gap between Niue – an isolated nation – and the world globally. The website that we have, we were able to make available globally our products or any business on Niue.
DD: How important would you say it is for you to have a good internet presence?
TRFL: Oh, it’s very important. That’s the only way from Niue, we can market our products and create global awareness of what we have and what we can offer. In terms of the Hei Niue business, we are promoting our Niue honey as a way that will promote Niue our country, and also the vision behind the Hei Niue business.
DD: What costs are there setting up a company website in Niue?
TRFL: In terms of the Hei Niue business, we’re very fortunate that I have my husband who has helped me set up the website and having a company, Hei Niue business, we didn’t have much funding. In any business you need funding to carry out your vision.
DD: What about social media, Facebook and Twitter and so on, how important is that for your company?
TRFL: That’s important, because that’s how we advertise what we do. We can document fruit pictures and just for example in my business, I put up how many clients that we’ve had, and just getting out information like that it would encourage readers to then want to come and try out what services that we have to offer, or even to try out our products and see how it suits them, and the benefits we have in our skincare range using Niue honey.
DD: How recent is this development in Niue that you can set up internet company websites and be successful? Has this been going on for a long time or is it a recent development?
TRFL: Hei Niue business just started in October 2011, and as I mentioned before you need funding for any business to develop the vision that you have for your business. We’ve actually just started without a budget and without support, so basically for me personally I started out with the one product, which was the facial, using the Niue honey and had to do some trialing processes, you know, people that came over and we tried it out. We started out with $26, basically how I started out. With the $26 came containers and then some of the ingredients we had, we used natural ingredients from Niue. We just went out and tried it at one of the national constitution show days, and we made $80 from there, and we just took little steps from there. At the moment, we now have a little space in town and the other part we do is offering services, and services were never a part of the plan from the beginning, it was always about the products and promoting the product using Niue honey, which has benefits…anti-aging, anti-bacterial and also as you know honey is good not only for your skin, but also for your health, and so in terms of promoting this product that we have unique to Niue – which hasn’t been promoted as yet – it was one of our passions to get that out there and get it out to the world so they can also enjoy the benefits of the Niue honey that we have, so it’s been a small, but it’s still very new, but we’re making small progresses and we’ll continue to develop this and our vision is to take it out there globally for the benefit of promoting our country and also the great benefits in the Niue honey.
DD: Emani, what do you think about the Hei Niue website?
EFL: I liked it, because I developed it.
DD: How unique is it in a Niue setting?
EFL: Well, it’s quite unique in a Niuean setting in that it brings out the qualities of her products and also the business into a bigger environment and audience, and just using that kind of medium, which is the internet, it attracts audience, enables them to see what is happening in a small environment. If it wasn’t available on the website, they wouldn’t see what was going on or be able to order products online and also get the feeling of the crème on your skin, there’s no bridging going on. But now with the internet and the website it works well.
DD: Do you think there will be more initiatives like this in Niue in the years to come?
EFL: Yes, that’s also part of what we envisage…other companies and small businesses coming online, and there are quite a few that’s doing that as well, especially those involved in the tourism sector with fishing charters and things like eco-tourism, bushwalks, reef-walks, so there’s going to be a whole lot more coming out of internet presence.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 New Zealand Licence.
Daniel Drageset
