About Us
- Background
- Tourism Wales UK
- Booking Wales UK
- New Spatial Presentation
- Beta
- Business Websites
- Tourism Wales UK and Visit Wales
- The Team
- Programme Enrolment
- Programme Features
- Tourism Community Network
- Contact
Background
Long before the Internet the tourism experience started when we walked into the high street travel agent, were welcomed by professional staff, thumbed through brochures and contemplated the wide choice of package tours available to different European destinations for our main summer holiday.
Since then the the pattern has changed considerably with short breaks more popular and the Internet to hand to go anywhere in the world. The holiday experience starts now when we enter a destination website that's been given a lot of thought and the welcome begins as we browse through the content. The more usable the site the greater the experience, the more friendly the site the greater the welcome and we warm immediately to the destination it represents.
The realisation has now dawned that a website is no longer for advertising, it's the product itself!
In its third stage of evolution the Internet is now revolutionising the presentation of tourism and travel information, using spatial search to pin-point individual towns and villages that welcome visitors by working together to put themselves firmly on the world tourism map. What was once macro-marketing has now become micro-marketing with town and village collectives of visitor Accommodation and Attraction providers wanting to make their mark on the worldwide web.
Tourism Wales UK
The launch of a new national website doesn't occur every day and when it does it has to be something rather special. Tourism Wales UK is not just one website but over 7,000 and counting, each developed spatially to cover visitor Accommodation and Attraction providers in over 400 villages and towns, 12 regions and 27 different niche markets for tourism to Wales.
All sites can be accessed directly from the home page making navigation simple and they are all registered independently with the search engines to maximise visit numbers. This is brilliant news, not only for tourism businesses taking part in the programme but for consumers too, producing more quality booking enquiries!
Tourism Wales UK is live and fully functional on the web at tourism.wales.info but as with all websites ready to embrace new developments it will always be work in progress
Booking Wales UK
In March 2009 Tourism Wales UK joined forces with Google Maps®, Active Hotels and Booking.com to launch a beta version of Booking Wales UK at http://booking.wales.info/
Booking.com, part of the NASDAQ quoted Priceline Group, is Europe's leading online booking provider with over 4,500 distribution channels worldwide and produced over £5,000,000 (million) of bookings for Wales hotels, guesthouses, bed & breakfasts and self-catering accommodation in the first half of 2009. This success story will be rolled out further during the second half of 2009 and on into 2010.
New Spatial Presentation
The new spatial presentation means there's no longer any need for tedious listings. Users can see on the maps what they're searching for then click straight through to participating businesses' own websites. And it doesn't stop there!
Beta
In online speak, beta is a nickname for website developments that have passed the alpha testing stage of development and have been released for users to provide feedback and comment to help improve new sites or new functions before full launch.
Website programmes like Tourism Wales UK are in what's known as perpetual or rolling beta owing to the speed of new developments and frequency of upgrades necessary to keep pace with new technology that comes on stream.
Far from a disadvantage to businesses, it places them in the front line of innovation, ahead of their competitors. Businesses enrolled in the Tourism Wales UK programme can simply experience the benefits of passive collaboration while the development work is done by others for the benefit of all members.
Business Websites
We've built personal websites with picture galleries for all businesses enrolled in the new Tourism Wales UK Programme using the same spatial search principles. Potential visitors can see nearby attractions, make booking enquiries, get detailed driving directions, and book direct by clicking straight through to businesses' own websites or their Tourism Wales UK website. Participants can use these sites to replace or upgrade their own websites if they wish. The choice is entirely theirs.
Tourism Wales UK and Visit Wales
So what's the relationship with Tourism Wales UK and Visit Wales ?
Tourism Wales UK is a reputable Visit Wales Data Distributor supported entirley by subscription members enrolled in the programme, complementing the work done by Visit Wales in key areas such as quality assurance and macro destination marketing.
Tourism.Wales UK gets 'under the skin of the macro' through micro-destination marketing based on places and events in Wales, made possible by the early adoption of spatial search, expanded now through Google Maps® and Google Earth®.
The Team
James Christopher Edwards
Director of Sales and Marketing
Email: chris.edwards@wales.info
James is 48, born and educated in the Cynon Valley, has worked for himself and private business most of his life.
He has built successful businesses in publishing including free offline free newspapers and online portals. By 1996 he was designing high-ranking websites, working out why they were performing so well in the search engines and pioneering the science of Search Engine Optimisation.
James has made contacts around the world and today moderates and advises on some of the most respected SEO Forums on the Internet including highrankings.com, digitalpoint.com, smallbusinessbrief.com. He has on his client list Adobe Inc and Norwich Union, although working with small businesses gives him the most pleasure.
His greatest passions are his family, rugby and marketing. He is an active member of his community and local rugby club, Resolven RFC, where, although no longer playing, he sponsors 3 teams, runs the Mini and Junior section, coaching the Under 8s and Under 9s. He is also a member of the Vale of Neath Parochial Church Council.
Terry Jackson
Director of Strategy and Planning
Email: terry.jackson@wales.info
Terry Jackson co-founded This Week–Wythnos Yma, the national tourism newspaper for Wales, in 1988 with business partner Steven Potter who later went on to develop http://londontown.com. After producing the original blueprint for Visit Wales in 1996 and developing the Sustainable Transport for Tourism Wales marketing campaign, he engineered the Internet debut of This Week in 1997, embedding spatial search into the system soon after. The new site was launched at the Cymru'r Milflwydd tourism showcase at the 2000 National Eisteddfod of Wales, where an historic 'Owain Glyndwr' re-enactment was staged as part of the celebrations.
In 2004 the newspaper was switched entirely onto the Internet and 'Staying in Wales' was founded to take forward the 'Taste of Wales' scheme abandoned by the Welsh Development Agency in 2003. The Wales.info domain was acquired a year later and 'Staying in Wales' was incorporated into Tourism Wales UK though the site still operates.
Terry was a long-standing director of the Wales Rural Forum until the forum was dissolved after achieving its objectives and is a founder member of the International Federation for Information Technology, Travel and Tourism. He is also active on various steering groups including the Association of Geographic Industries in Wales and the review group for the Geographic Information Action Plan Strategy for Wales. Outside his passion for work, his main interests are family, Formula 1 motor racing, supporting his local Histon FC football team and and an oral history project involving his old school.
Arvind Nehru
Webmaster and Network Manager
Email: arvind.nehru@wales.info
Arvind Nehru is 30, born in Bangalore, India where in 2002 he achieved his BSc in Computer Science. In 2004, after working two years in a small company as a Quality Assurance Executive, he joined This Week Wales as Network Manager.
In 2005 he enlisted at Bangor University on an intense two-year Masters degree course in Computer Science during which time he was building and running websites and web applications on a daily basis including 'Staying in Wales' at http://stayinginwales.com/
Working under the tutelage of senior web developers and consultants, he has gained considerable experience building CSS pages using new digital mapping platforms and is a member of several web development communities including Google Maps, Google Earth and semantic Web 2.0 applications.
Arvind is a keen cricketer, follower of Formula1 and Moto GP.
Appointment to be confirmed
Director of Product Development
Email: info@wales.info
In the fast-changing environment of the worldwide web, the role of director of product development is crucial. Wales.info is in the final stages of recruiting an experienced Internet professional who has skills in web management, design and navigation, codewriting, cartography, taxonomy and search-engine optimisation. Watch this space!
Programme Enrolment
Enrolment in the Tourism Wales UK programme is open by to star-graded accommodation providers, visitor attractions, event venues, restaurants, shops, food producers and all other businesses whose revenue is derived largely from the tourism market / visitor economy in Wales.
Please go to http://tourism.wales.info/2010earlybirdoffer1.asp for special Early Bird rates for new members for 2009-2010.
Introductory and early-bird enrolment costs for 2009-2010 are as follows:
2009 Introductory Membership
(6 months) 1st July-31st Dec 2009
£65 +15% VAT
2010 Early Bird Membership
(12 months) 1st Jan-31st Dec 2010
£120 +15% VAT (£180 less £60 early-bird discount)
2009-2010 Special Early Bird Membership
(18 months) 1st July-31st Dec 2010
£145 +15% VAT (£245 less £100 early-bird special discount)
Programme Features
A list of 2009-2010 Programme features can be seen at http://tourism.wales.info/features.asp but does not include new developments in the pipeline for 2010. These will be announced as thay come on stream.
Tourism Community Network
The Tourism Wales UK Community Network at http://tourismcommunity.wales.info is by invitation only at present and is a social space on the web where visitors and hospitality providers can freely exchage ideas and views, relate their experiences, add events, set up discussion groups and upload unlimited numbers of pictures and videos.
Followingsix months of trialing, the network will be free-launched during the second half of 2009 to provide brand new marketing opportunities for 2010.
Contact
Email: tourism@wales.info
Phone: 0845 409 8260 Weekdays 9am–5pm (Local call rates apply)
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