Designing an effective website for your tourism business requires strategic planning and a decision at a corporate or organizational level to use the internet to achieve specific objectives.
Choose a reputable developer and look at their past portfolio of sites. Discuss what you are looking for in advance. Share ideas and get their professional input. A good designer will translate what you re looking for into appropriate applications and management systems. Emphasize what will the site do for you and which elements of your business will be online. Agree what the site will be able to do and what it will not.

Unless your business is very small or you have little or no interest in online promotion- your site should not be a static off the shelf design that cannot be updated directly by your organization. You will need a Dynamic XML site with self-management capability.

You should aim for a website that is:
• Content Driven
• Right mix of content- Practical and Inspirational
• The Three Easies: Easy to find, Easy to Access, Easy to use
• An Interactive experience
• Has Web 2.0 integration
• Adds value from 3rd party services
• Credible
• Frequently and accurately updated

Map out your site structure and content in advance, and create a site map that charts a users path through the site. Make it as easy as possible to move within the site in a natural and intuitive way.
Your site map will not be linear, but will resemble a flow chart. Always be sure that the user has plenty of easy to understand options and can always access the information they need, and has options to change their mind, go back or use a search tool. The final stage of your customer journey should be a conversion- either to a sale, further enquiry or registration.

Be sure that you agree in advance how the website will be managed and by who. A website should not be managed by an IT department- as the staff do not handle marketing, PR or business functions. Your site is the public face that your company is presenting to the world. Ask yourself- if a potential client visited your offices looking for information, would you refer them to your IT staff to assist them? Your website should be managed by the staff who are directly responsible for the functions and content included in the site.

Dynamic Websites are driven by Content Management Systems (CMS) which run on top of database repositories. They provide easy to use and intuitive tools to help you manage your own website. CMS systems let you update your website reliably and quickly. They provide ‘Room for Growth’ – as your organization grows, your website can be easily expanded to cater to new requirements, services and needs.

Most use a simple WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU GET (WYSIWYG) editor that provides simple management controls including Word style tool bars for editing page content, and simple folder systems to manage pages and databases of content. For a larger site with large volumes of content or interactive features, a dynamic site that allows multi-user delegation by a central editor is recommended. This means specific people within the organization can be given the responsibility of editing and managing their relevant sections, while the main editor retains overall control.

Use your CMS and database to commoditize your products, and create interactive experiences and if possible, booking functions. Integrate the website into your reservations and accounting systems to streamline your travel distribution. Explore access to the GDS and other distribution channels and allocating rooms or space to online intermediaries.
Once your site is up and running, run regular tests and analyse your user stats and traffic reports.
• Trial your download speeds, search engine ranking, check the links are active
• Get reliable accurate statistics and make informed decisions to change your site
• Are people accessing your site then leaving via their BACK key?
• Learn to read your stats- focus on unique visits and page impressions, rather than ‘hits’.
• Study user behaviour
• Have them subscribe and register where possible
• Monitor your user Feedback and use stats to lobby your management and demonstrate return on Investment

Note: The information on this page is drawn from resources produced and used by E-Tourism Africa trainers Peter Varlow (TEAM Tourism) and Damian Cook. Please do not reproduce or publish this material without permission. This information is an overview of content from our Training Seminars. If you'd like learn more about this topic, attend one of our events and join the E-Tourism Seminars.