HONG KONG: Digital marketing agency Web Guru Asia claims to have achieved a 43 percent click-through rate for the first issue of a new e-newsletter for the Peninsula Group.

Web Guru Asia designed and sent a Japanese-language html email to a database of travel trade professionals in Japan, using Dartmail. The campaign also reported an open rate of 66 percent.

Alex Moore, chief guru and MD of Web Guru, said: "By making the benefits of clicking for more information as clear as possible, we were able to entice a large number of recipients to access a microsite containing the full e-newsletter and links to the client's online enquiry and reservation system."

Ralph Hirt, managing director at DoubleClick, said that the open rate for emails in Asia is 45.4 percent, compared with 35.7 percent in the US. Asia's click-through rate in Q2 was 12.7 percent, significantly ahead of the US (7.6 percent).