Anyone involved in the US$50 billion commercial world that surrounds the international airport industry will be familiar with The Moodie Report.com, an international source of real-time business news on the global retail travel sector.
New Zealander Martin Moodie is the founder of multimedia digital publishing business Moodie International and he is hoping to branch out into other global industries with the same model.
The Cantabrian, who started his business from his home in Ealing, London, has changed the way trade magazines are published in the UK.
"It's been a great journey, from a start-up in the garden shed in 2002 to a company that's very well thought of and generally deemed very innovative in the sector," says Moodie.
After setting the Moodie Report up in 2002 as a PDF e-newsletter, it became a website in 2003, a print version followed and then an e-zine. "Everything was back-to-front. The print was the icing on the cake," says Moodie.
Most recently there's been The Foodie Report.com, dedicated to travel-related, revenue-generating food and beverage.
The Moodie Report.com attracts 270,000 page views a month, a high volume for a niche business website, says Moodie.
Moodie International turns over $4 million a year and the New Zealander's plan is to hit $20 million within five years.
"Its unique selling point is, I think, the way it has embraced and, to a certain extent, pioneered digital media and we plan to take that to the next level over the coming five years."
The New Zealander's positive approach to digital publishing has his much larger competition watching with interest."There was no advertising on the web when we began. We have driven that, and watched all our opposition follow," says Moodie.
"Our view has always been that there is no point in putting padlocks or protection [on business news] - there is so much out there that we feel you may as well embrace it and find other ways to derive income from it," says Moodie.
"We created what was the ultimate forum, then we leveraged the income off that. You've got to create the readership in the first place," he says. The publisher believes it is very difficult to create a subscriber-based internet business.
"We have always viewed democracy on the web as an opportunity, not as a barrier to income. We know we can bring a lot of numbers to our website, so let's let them in. Let's find other ways of leveraging income through advertising, research, consultancy and events," he says.
Advertisers are appreciating the benefits of the online magazines and the shelf-life they can have from e-zines that they don't get from print, says Moodie.
The Moodie Report's e-zine has advertising that can embed video and audio. "They are extraordinary ads, you can hear and see the product come to life."
The same video and audio techniques are used for editorial content. "It's interactive and dynamic."
The Linwood High alumnus has always recognised opportunities and taken them on his way up.
Moodie emigrated to Britain in 1987 at the age of 31 with a young family and his then English wife. He began writing for an international drinks magazine and by the time he was ready to set up on his own, Moodie had risen from reporter to managing director of Raven Fox, publisher of the magazine Duty-Free News International.
But he became frustrated as a corporate manager and left in 2002 to set up the Moodie Report, his aim being to write about the commercial business surrounding the world's airports. In the UK, business-to-business media was struggling with the emergence of the internet. "All their revenue was derived from print - they were afraid of the digital opportunity," he says.
Digital lent itself to covering this diverse global industry, says Moodie. He ploughed everything he earned in the early days into hiring staff and opening a small office. He now has 20 staff, 12 full-time and eight freelancers around the world.
"In 2004 we became the overall market leader. We went from being the cheeky upstart to being the market leader and employing very good people from around the world."
On top of this, Moodie, who was an experienced conference mediator, launched a conference division, The Trinity Forum, inviting all airport industry stakeholders to participate. Moodie continues to invest in innovative digital media. There is now The Moodie Podcast, The Moodie Blog, The Moodie Forum, The Moodie App and a popular new service called The Moodie View that shows film clips and video online.
The challenge in 2012 and beyond is to replicate the Moodie Report model in more industries, says the entrepreneur, who has bounced back from stomach cancer in the last year. Meanwhile, Moodie promotes a steady corporate and social responsibility message in his business. He and his industry contacts have done fund-raising for Christchurch among other recently stricken cities in the world. He visited his home town during the Rugby World Cup and found his former family home in Sumner was no longer there.
Moodie never forgets his Kiwi roots. "My Kiwi origins have been integral to any success that I have had. Kiwis' reputation over here is we just get on with it, what you see is what you get."