Nope, it isn’t a Wednesday, but you could consider this a belated WebWatch Wednesday post.
See, I was going to look up weather conditions in Sydney, where I may be headed to in a couple of weeks, when a sudden whim took me to the Australian tourism website and boy, was I blown away by the brand new look and features.
For a start, I was totally seduced by the map view options on the home. There are so many interactive touchpoints that are just begging for the visitor to click and explore. I tried the climate map just for fun. This is the first website I’ve come across that makes wonderful use of the map. It’s not just three dimensional, it’s intuitively easy to understand and navigate.
This led me to a round of web surfing to check out other tourism sites. These are some of the tourism sites which impressed me with the lay-out, navigation, classy design and rich content:
What’s cool is the video blog section “Lost in Francelation” which takes the visitors through various parts of France. The videos are tongue-in-cheek travelogue guides which will leave bemused and educated at the same time. Next to these vignette, you’ll find links and tips related to the topic of focus.
I like how the itineraries are drilled down by interest, segment (what type of traveler you are), themes, attraction groups and events. The tourism team here is making a real good effort to gather a loyal set of ‘customers’ with travel tools and a personalized area.
This site has one of the most stunning and dreamiest visuals ever. There’s a social media feature in the bookmark tool which allows you to build your own scrapbook of images, places, things which interest you. Pretty handy for planning a visit. I simply couldn’t resist going around collecting images, especially of castles! I also like the little Ireland trivia posted on the right.
Scotland
My enjoyment of this otherwise informative and well laid-out site was marred by the streaming speed of the video. It kept breaking and buffering I click to the other sections before even finishing watching it. Oh, and there’s a whole section devoted to golf. But of course, they have to. This is after all, home of the famed St. Andrew’s.
That’s about it for now. I’ll go globetrotting another day to see other parts of the world.
Posted on June 29th, 2007 by ag
Filed under: All else, webwatching
Those are pretty cool!
I loved that Australia map!!
CindyS