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Regional holidays in the 21st century

Today is Auckland Anniversary Day, something that is probably of little interest to the majority of Aardvark Daily readers.

Odds are that most of those reading this column from outside NZ didn't even realise that most people in the upper North Island are enjoying a long-weekend, having the bonus of an extra day (today).

For anyone resident elsewhere in the country (or the world) it's probably "business as usual" today, while Aucklanders sit at home, watching the rain fall on a day when they should be lazing on the beach.

But here I am, tapping away at a keyboard to produce this edition of your daily drone, even though I too should be enjoying a sleep-in.

Regional holidays were a great idea when I was a kid back in the 1960s but today they're a bit of a problem and may even have even passed their "best-by" date.

The problem is that new technology, such as the internet, has effectively dismantled the hurdles of distance that allowed one area of the nation to have a day off while the rest of the country continued to toil away.

Perhaps New Zealand (or even the world) is now so "connected" that regional holidays are no longer practical.

If I'd slept today instead of getting up around sun-rise so as to collect the daily headlines and come up with a couple of topics for these columns, many of my readers would have said "what the?"

The thing is that when you have a national or even global audience, local holidays become impossible to observe without annoying at least some of your customers/audience.

Another great example of this is what's about to happen next week.

In case you weren't aware, virtually the whole of China goes on holiday for a couple of weeks in order to celebrate the Chinese New Year.

Throughout this hugely populous nation, workers will be stepping away from their jobs and many will head home to see friends and family, often for the first time since last February.

Until recently, this mass tools-down was of little concern to the Western world. Buyers for large retail chains usually buy product well in advance of the Chinese holiday so places like The Warehouse and (in the USA) WalMart keep their shelves full of the low-cost bounty that flows like honey from the provinces of China.

However, the arrival of the internet in China has made the two-week holiday far more important to Western consumers.

Thanks to a growing number of websites such as DealExtreme, consumers are getting used to buying products directly from China online, with the attendant savings and convenience. The problem is that for the next month or so, that sales channel is completely stuffed by Chinese New Year celebrations.

Not only will the entire nation (including much of its postal/freight system) be enjoying the company of friends and family but even once they return to work, the backlog of orders will see the wheels turn exceeding slow for at least another two or three weeks.

At least in the West, our statutory holidays tend to be relatively short. Even Christmas and the New Year only involve two official days off each. The prospect of a fortnight's shutdown to industry and commerce is something we'd never even consider -- for fear of the effect it would have on our economy and our trading relations.

I wonder how long before commercial expediency and a burning desire to become "the" world's economic superpower will see China rethinking the practicality of taking a two-week break.

At some stage they'll realise that simply switching the entire country off and neglecting its online-retail stores for a fortnight is not something you can continue to do in the 21st century.

The Net is still changing the world and the way we do business. I fully expect to see even more change taking place over the next few years as we come to the realisation that timezones and distance are no longer valid justifications for not providing 24/7/365 service.

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