Two years after purchasing the industry-leading underwater magazine Dive Pacific, the New Zealand Underwater Association is pleased to be in the process of launching a significant expansion of its digital offering.

Driving the investment are two key goals:

• To better service the New Zealand underwater audience with content and a community relevant to their specific interests, available 24/7 on a world-class, dynamic platform.
• To take high-quality New Zealand and South Pacific diving stories to a larger international audience in a scalable, sustainable form.
  

Currently in construction, the platform is formatted like a news website and includes options to search stories dynamically and sort content by interest specific to the reader. 

A moderated discussion forum is in consideration, supported by genre-specific community pages to ensure divers of all types can interact with like-minded individuals anywhere in the country, even the world.

Dive Pacific looks forward to welcoming new contributors. Every person in the underwater community will have the opportunity to submit content in any format – written with images, audio or video – seamlessly through a digital portal to the Dive Pacific team for publishing consideration.

Benefits to advertisers are forecast to be considerable. A far larger audience across all demographics in New Zealand and worldwide will use Dive Pacific as a trusted source of diving information in the region. The new technology offers many innovative opportunities to support the business community's goals. All are to be presented directly in the coming months.

As part of the transition, the current 'two print and two flip-book editions per annum' model will shift to one bumper print issue per annum, plus the 24/7 digital platform, with its mix of free and premium stories. 

Current subscribers will receive the option of transferring their current subscriptions to the new platform on a trial basis.

The development of the new platform is a vital step for Dive Pacific as we strive to provide a world-class service to the local and global underwater community. 

The NZUA expects the new digital platform to be ready for launch in March this year.

Please direct questions to Andrea Macfarlane by email at andrea@nzua.org.nz

Regards,

Andrew Berry

Director

New Zealand Underwater Assn.