Travel Sites

introduction

The first thing that comes to mind on hearing “a compelling website” –is a beautifully designed website with hues of colours and images… a piece of art… Great… That is exactly the first thing that came to my mind when I sat down to design the website. A couple of weeks later I was probably more elated than Leonardo Da Vinci would have been after completing his master piece. The website was adjudged 4th in the Asia Pacific region (Region 10) IEEE Web Design Contest 2003 in the first time entrants’ category… that isn’t as bad as it sounds… www.ieee.org/mjcet http://www.ewh.ieee.org/sb/mjcet/index_.htm (me in the alumni section)

Almost half a decade later the website is absolutely the same… not due to my artistic brilliance… but because it just didn’t work out… Lessons learnt… The website discussed above is by no means an e-commerce website but the rules of the game (with regards to creation, development and sustenance) with or with out the commerce tag, remains similar.

The most important aspect is the content- a content strategy is an imperative for the click backs… though it is also the most neglected aspect…

the scenario

In a country with our history, heritage, geographical, cultural ethnic diversity it would take a few life times to truly experience the grandeur.

India has always had an immense potential to be a major tourist attraction, yet we rank a meager 140th in the world in terms of “Contribution of Tourism and Travel Economy to GDP” which stands at 5.3% as against a world average of 10.7%.… What lies in between these figures is the enormous potential which we seem to have always known but couldn’t do much about.

An exponential growth in inbound as well as domestic tourism in India has been projected. Different people would have different needs. People with less time for leisure are likely to take more frequent but shorter trips nearer home. The experienced traveller wants authentic, off-the-beaten-track vacations in remote and less well-known places as against luxurious five-star vacations, leading to an interest in rural and ethnic tourism. The increase in the number of people with lots of money but little leisure time has resulted in a growing emphasis on rest and relaxation, and �wellness’ and �health’ holidays. The demand for eco-tourism and nature based holidays is expected to double and even triple in the next 20 years. Sports and adventure holidays continue to be popular with the young.

But wasn’t this always the case. One of the reasons we have not been able to grow much despite the potential is the low utilization of modern marketing and publicity tools along with lack of relevant information.

the idea

The idea is to create a website which provides travelers with all the information in a comprehensive manner- a one stop reliable solution for all the informational requirements. In any web based business model the main idea is to lay down the infrastructure, get the traffic, which would ultimately generate money. Getting the traffic and sustaining the growth of traffic is the actual task, as success would depend on the breadth of content.

The following aspects were thought out while conceptualizing the idea: the current sources of information available to travelers, the stake holders in travel & tourism industry- who could be potential partners, the changing trends – travel & tourism and the emergence of the web 2.0 based portals.

All the people who travel and use the web will search for relevant information for the travel say from actually deciding/finding the place to travel, to options to stay. Currently there are no players online who provide a comprehensive website which provides all the pertinent information, the information currently available on the net is scattered and not very authentic. Maplesstravel.com would provide services to cater to this need,