Last week was a Milestone week for us. We launched 3 new Asian websites:
We stay true to our user centered approach while supporting a growing number of websites. Our decisions are driven by research; we try not to guess. Turning research results into sounds decisions regarding technology, content and acquisition strategies is where the fun is at.
Our approach to our Asian was no different from our other websites. We worked with in-market specialists, including our staff, who where instrumental at turning this project into a success. Here are some details about our approach to international websites.
Technology
Our core technology platform now support websites for our North American, UK, Australian, Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese markets. Our websites are integrated with our Destination Management System that serves as the core of our content management. Product information collected through TourismBC.net is included on all 6 websites.
Information Architecture
We have conducted focus groups, phone interviews, card sorts and/or usability tests to find the best way to organize the content on each website. We start with research about how our target audience in a particular market approach their trip planning; their mental model.
We adjust our taxonomy where needed. For example, in North America a farm accommodation is called a ‘guest ranch‘. In the UK it’s called a ‘cowboy ranch‘ and in Australia a farmstay.
Templates & design
We’ve re-used our templates for HelloBC.com for our other market websites. This is partly because of economic reasons. We don’t have unlimited people and budget. By keeping things consistent, we also make it easier to maintain the templates over time. Content makes a website appropriate for a market. Changing a picture around can have a significant impact. We keep a close eye on things and might migrate into more a distinct look and feel for certain markets if our research tell us to do so.
Content
As I mentioned earlier, all tourism operators who have enrolled in our HelloBC Listing Program are automatically published on all 6 websites.
We also support a large volume of destination information on each website. In order to make this more efficient, we have connected certain pages on our market websites with HelloBC. Even though they might fit someplace different in the Information Architecture, the copy and images are the same as HelloBC. If anything changes on HelloBC, so does the copy on the other websites. There are still areas on each page to publish market specific content. Each website also has disconnected pages. These pages are either unique for that market, or need different copy from HelloBC (the getting to British Columbia page for example)
This is “easy” on our UK and Australian market websites because they are in English. But it’s different for our websites in a foreign language. For these websites we are using the services of a translation partner. Pages can still be connected. But when a page on HelloBC is updated, our content specialist has to option to send a work order to our translation partner. A translator who’s located in the respective country will translate the new or updated content. One of our in-market staff members will approve the copy and publish the new content. It’s fully automated with a work-flow system.
There’s no time to sit still. The 2010 games are just 500 days away and we need to be ready. We kicked off our German website project last week. But that’s not the only things we’re working on. More about other activities soon.
I don’t know John from Terrace. But on April 4, 2007 he posted a blog post about the Seven Sisters Mountain Range on HelloBC’s blog. It’s a short paragraph, but contains perfect information and he added a beautiful photo as well. Great for us, great for our website users.
Google indexed the entry and the last month, the term “Seven Sisters Mountain Range” was the 14th most popular keyword driving organic traffic to HelloBC. There are 25 other variations of the keyword driving traffic to the website as well.
Thanks John, and all other HelloBC bloggers. You’re helping us market, and helping travelers plan.
I’m back from a summer blogging hiatus. Lot’s of things have happened and we’re working on even more. I’ll be able to share more soon.
Last year, we engaged in a ‘Video Host’ test. We hired Chris, who visited 3 of our ski resorts and captured his experience in videos that are posted on our YouTube channel, HelloBC and other websites. It was a great success and we’ve learned a lot about what works well and where we can make improvements.
This year, we’re going to extend the scope of our video efforts by hiring a group of video ‘Field Reporters’ to capture even more experiences, around the province. These videos are going to be very authentic; meaning that we’re not going to restrain our Field Reporters much. We want to capture the real thing, as experienced by the reporters. The things they’re going to do will be based on recommendations from others. I created this video to demonstrate the concept:
By the way, the woman in the video is my lovely wife Sheri…
The field reporter execution is part of an even bigger strategy that I will explain soon, but in the meantime, we’re looking for video Field Reporters.
If you think you’re perfect for the job, or if you know somebody that would be, you will find all the details about the job requirements and selection process in this PDF.
I had the opportunity to join two panel conversations the last few weeks.
The first one was at the Online Revealed conference in Calgary where I joined Terri McCulloch, Tom Wilson,
Jens Thraenhart and Stephen Joyce. Alicia Whalen and Phil Caines did a great job moderating. I particularly like Phil’s live web servicing to show the websites we talked about. This was the third time we took the Tips from the T-List on the road and it was another great session where we discussed and debated the opportunities blogs, User Generated Content and Social Networks provide for the tourism industry. I like these sessions because I represent myself as a travel blogger and Tourism BC for our HelloBC Blogs initiative. It was the first time I met Terri and Tom, and they provided great insights. I’ve been a fan of Terri’s blog for a while now and Tom’s work is a great example of maximizing the medium with limited resources.
Thank you Patricia and Alicia from a Couple of Chicks marketing for inviting me. You’ve done a great job again.
Today I joined Ben Stringfellow (Director of Internal Communications, McDonalds USA), Thierry Hay-Sabourin (Senior Ecommerce Manager, Future Shop), William Azaroff (Interactive Marketing & Channel Manager, Vancity) on a panel called ‘Giving Your Brand Away’ at the Convergence 2008 conference. It was a pleasure to share the stage with this diverse group who’ve all done great things with building communities.
Ben gave us the story and result from a brand new closed community for McDonalds’ staff, reducing cost of printing newletters and creating efficiencies through shared learning between the restaurants. William gave us the remarkable story behind the Change Everything community while Thierry provide insights into Futureshop message boards, including Aaron, the search guy.
The biggest take-away I got from the session was that the first 500 members of your community will set the tone. So it’s important that the first members set the right tone, otherwise it will be hard to recover from that. Thierry shared that the tone on the English boards is very different from the French boards for example. At our HelloBC Blogs, we accidentallyThak did the right thing by starting our efforts with staff and our visitor centres, who set the right tone for consumers. Sometimes you need a bit of luck.
Thank you Sandy from Fjord Interactive for inviting me and a great conference.
As the importance of our web presence is growing every day, we have to make sure we can meet the demands of our organization and it’s stakeholders. So we have posted two positions to strengthen our unit.
The first position is an Online Specialist whose primary responsibilities are related to managing our User Experience but understands the context of the big picture.
The second position is an Online Specialist whose primary responsibility is to manage our Search related activities; both through Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing.
If you, or somebody you know is ready for the challenge, please check out the detailed descriptions and send in your resume. Tourism BC is a great place to work and our online programs unit rocks (see picture below of our Rock Band extravaganza last Friday).
Mikala (Mickey-La) on guitar, Holly (H-meister-C) on drums, Jose (J-Go) on the mike
Chris Anderson’s the long tail has inspired much of my strategic thinking the last year or so. It’s a great book that highly recommend reading. Or at least his article in Wired magazine. Recenly I was asked to speak about the changing expectations for content in the tourism industry. First thing that came to mind.. the long tail.
Traditionally (well, pre-internet), consumers had limited information about destinations and available tourism product and experiences. Guidebooks were the most common source for planning information. They do a terrific job at providing information about the most popular tourism experiences. But Guidebooks are constraint by the number of available pages and the result is that only most popular tourism experiences are included, with a sample of supporting services such as accommodation and restaurants.
Tourism websites like ours don’t have a limited number of pages. We can include much more information, in a greater level of detail. As a result, consumers have access to more information and potential experiences that could meet their specific interest. Websites have removed the physical constraints of paper pages in a guidebook and can go further down the tail. But there are constraints still. There’s only so much content publishers can create and maintain.
To go all the way down the tail, publishers need help. That’s where user generated content plays a key role. This is how you can get the information about all kinds of experiences you will never find in a guidebook, or even on a website. But these experiences can be very appealing to some consumers, and play a key part in making decisions about where to go, and how long to stay there. This how to fill the tail, provide consumers with the information they seek, and maximize benefits to tourism businesses.
I know I’ve been light on postings in recent weeks. January and February are busy months here at Tourism BC. I hope to pick up the pace soon.
In the meantime, here’s where you can find me in the next few weeks:
Remember our call for a video host? Well, here’s our first video. Watch our youtube page for more videos by Chris. Have a cool BC Ski video yourself? Submit is at hellobc.com/skivideo. You can win a ski or snowboard package.
Yesterday, Google added a new layer to Google Maps:
This is perfect of course for HelloBC. A large part of what makes a BC vacation great is the geography and natural beauty. So here’s what happened yesterday and today.
3:04PM – I send out an email to the Web team about the new layer and that we should think about adding it to HelloBC
3:41PM – Ana, our Project Manager sends an email back with a link to the staging server with the new layer active (it’s now 6:41 PM in Toronto, where the techies are located).
9:07AM today – Holly, our Consumer Web Manager sends an email to Ana asking when we can put it in production.
9:09 AM – Ana tells Holly testing is already completed, so whenever we’re ready
9:16 AM – Holly gives the go-ahead
9:41 AM – New terrain layer active on HelloBC.
For a website with the complexity of HelloBC, this small example is a testimonial to our team and technology partner T4G that we are able to respond in this fashion. Great work everybody.
Today we launched Tourism BC’s first Facebook application. I’m very excited about it. Our team has done a great job at packing lots of information and functionality into a small space. Snow heights, new snow, places you’ve skied, places you want to ski, looking at where you’re friends have been, comments about current conditions, photos, it’s very impressive. I think it’s useful and fun for all ski and snowboard enthusiast. Go check it out for yourself.