World class tourism portal and e-commerce platform
The Challenge:
VisitBritain is one of the world’s leading national tourism organisations, and is charged with promoting Great Britain overseas as a tourist destination, as well as leading and coordinating the marketing of the UK domestically. They came to Agilisys with the challenge of dramatically overhauling their official website, VisitBritain.com, to provide an improved customer experience both technologically and visually. Given VisitBritain’s broad international reach, the site needed to be not only multi-lingual, but also customisable by local marketing teams across 38 international markets. The site also needed to facilitate online booking where possible, while promoting the UK itself, rather than any specific tourism product. Finally, once the site design and integration was complete, there was the continued challenge of building and enhancing functionality of the site to continue to meet the demands of the business and users.
The Solution
Working in close partnership with VisitBritain, Agilisys first conducted stakeholder and systems analysis to develop a long term online strategy, establishing the basis for immediate and future growth. Agilisys then implemented the strategy, creating and updating 47 VisitBritain.com consumer sites, involving 20 different languages – as diverse in presentation as Chinese, Russian, and Thai. These sites, as well as the US-focused ‘TravelBritain’ site, were built using the Tridion content management system, which allows centralised and localised publishing in each regional market – meaning visitors from around the world get content that truly suits their needs, not simply their language.
The VisitBritain portal is also built on the EnglandNet platform, which enables consumers to make real-time checks on availability and pricing of tourism products, and book through 3rd party systems. This is the only platform in the world that enables National Tourist Offices to offer a truly ‘open e-commerce’ platform.
Finally, our solution for VisitBritain.com also included fully integrated GIS functionality, allowing for location-based information; marketing tools such as a holiday planner; personalisation tools to allow users to create a customised experience tailored to their interests; and a set of brand guidelines to ensure consistency across the VisitBritain sites.
Our relationship with VisitBritain continues to grow, as we develop strategic enhancements to the site such as a global flight search and online shop, as well as providing ongoing maintenance of the group platform.
The Benefits
VisitBritain now offers centralised access to updated information and personalisation of information to various audiences, strengthening the position of VisitBritain as a customer-centric organisation. This customer focus has been recognised by travel professionals worldwide, who have voted VisitBritain the ‘Worlds’Leading Tourism Authority Internet Site’ at the World Tourism Awards the past 3 years running.
Not only does the site offer a customisable front-end experience to prospective visitors to the UK, but the ease and versatility of the platform allows the local marketing offices around the world to conduct relevant and targeted campaigns themselves, rather than having to resort to a technical team for implementation. As such, campaigns can be highly focused and quickly produced in an efficient way, further supporting VisitBritain’s mandate.