Monday 31 July 2006 by Edward.

Take your brochures, flyers, reports and newsletters, add the right amount of music or voice narration, video and animation, tap your brain cells, mix carefully, and you can create a media-rich masterpiece — a brochure, or eBrochure, that can be viewed by 500 million people on the internet.

BC Pictures creates interactive eBrochures for tourism destinations using Adobe PDF technology. Here is an eBrochure example of the Toronto CN Tower attraction in standard print format (1 Mb) and in full-media format (7.7 Mb).

Roger A. Brooks Rule 5 “The Rule of Perceived Value” tells us that ‘First impressions are lasting impressions.’ We shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, says Brooks, but we do. A brochure, or website home page, is the first clue about the character and quality of your destination. What have you done lately to enhance your image?

Posted in Website/Event, Blogs/Podcast/eInfo, BEFORE the visit | No Comments »

Sunday 30 July 2006 by Edward.

Google offers a beta test for Picasa Web Album, a facility to download and geolocate images. You can add captions, post and view comments, and organize photos online. Picasa allows you to upload, and download back to your computer. Here is a sample to a public album posted by Noel Jenkins, and how it appears on Google Earth.

Now here’s a useful tool. You can subscribe to Noel Jenkins’ album via an RSS feed. Every time the album is updated a notice would go out automatically to all subscribers.

Roger A. Brooks Rule 25 “The Rule of frequency” states that ‘Repetition gets results, repetition gets result.’ Did you get that? Repetition gets results. This is the key to getting people to visit your website. Be consistent. Send out that website newsletter or that update notice.

Posted in Multimedia, Maps, AFTER the visit | No Comments »

Sunday 30 July 2006 by Edward.

Malta, “The heart of the Mediterranean”, recorded 1,960,368 website visits in the first half of this year, stated The Malta Tourism Authority (MTA) as reported by Di-ve.com. That’s a 70% increase over the same period last year. Last month they averaged 12,422 visits per day. Di-ve.com reports that an MTA spokeman said ” In today’s globalised tourism market … we can no longer rely exclusively on traditional methods to put Malta on the tourism map.

Roger A. Brooks Rule 3 ‘The Rule of Billboards and Exits’ requires that you “Put your bait out on the highway”. Whether you’re a little island in the middle of the Mediterranean, or a continent in the south Pacific, the same rule applies.

Posted in Website/Event, BEFORE the visit | No Comments »

Saturday 29 July 2006 by Edward.

USB WebCam with telescope from Hong Kong. Is this the “killer tool” for the birder that wants to report the rare bird or nesting site over the internet, or the tourist that wants to relay a close up of the running of the bulls, the sports event, or the town across the river?

Selected specifications and features: US$26.00, 7×18 telescope, adjustable focus 50mm to infinity, adjustable mini-tripod, built-in image email, VGA 800×600, video 30fps 320×240 up to 15fps 640×480, Windows 98SE/Me/2000/XP, USB 1.1 and 2.0 compliant.

Posted in Gadget/Idea/Webtool, Multimedia, Webcam, DURING the visit | No Comments »

Saturday 29 July 2006 by Edward.

As of 21st July, IdTechEx has stored over 2000 case studies involving applications of RFID, reports the RFID Gazette. Of 220 companies in 76 countries surveyed, 236 RFID applications involved leisure, making this sector the 5th most popular. Texas Instruments is the leading RFID supplier in this sector — a sector that is growing rapidlly.

Within leisure and sports, RFID is used mostly in tracking runners in marathons. Their use was also reported, for example, in boat, caravan, and sports equipment theft prevention, indoor kart racing, sports passes, and asset/people tracking in hotels, casinos and theme parks. 92 suppliers serviced this sector.

Do you have tourism examples in which RFID has been used?

Posted in Gadget/Idea/Webtool, DURING the visit | No Comments »

Friday 28 July 2006 by Edward.

Merriam-Webster now has their dictionary and thesaurus on a 250Mb USB dictionary-stick with room to spare, as shown on PopGadget.net. What a great tool for the travel writer.

With 300,000 words in this dictionary and 500,000 words in the thesaurus, a spell and grammar guide, the travel writer can now write the masterpiece travel story, even while on the road (or plane, train, auto, bike, hike, or beach).

Posted in Gadget/Idea/Webtool, AFTER the visit, DURING the visit, BEFORE the visit | No Comments »

Friday 28 July 2006 by Edward.

It is a pleasure to browse the island of Cyprus through images and icons. This is a new one-point access to Cyprus — to its tourist attractions, accomodations, properties for sale, holiday rentals, business, restaurants, bars/clubs, and the all important banks.

Navigation of ShowMe-Cyprus.com is clear. It is based on images and icons, minimizing language barriers for site visitors. High resolution satellite and aerial images are used (NOT Google Earth) in major tourist areas. My contact with ShowMe-Cyprus told me that the site mission was to provide an image-based directory to the landscape, to tourist destinations, to properties and accomodations. The site was reportedly constructed over two years and tested on 8 to 84 year-olds (see Leo Leonidu’s press article on the launch of the site last week). It was found to have an average web visit time of 20 minutes compared to the internet average of 30 seconds. Relatively fast-loading video clips no doubt add to the visitor’s length of stay.

Showme-Cyprus image acquisition was costly, and the site took a couple of years to build, but this expense should be recouped many times over. My navigation of this site was easy, though it took me awhile to understand the icons. The icons did not match the legend. I tried to locate some banks and had a hard time. I love the idea that a satellite image overview of Cyprus is what visitors see first.

The folks at ShowMe-Cyprus are now busy updating and adding content, adding private ’screening rooms’, and increasing functionality. The website developers are interested in extending this model to other parts of the world via franchising. Interested? Speak to their investor relations.

Question: Where’s the best place to eat in Cyprus? It looks like a great place to travel.

Roger A. Brooks‘ Rule 7 “The Rule of Perpendicular Signs” states that ‘20/20 signage equals $$$.’ Be visual. Visitors are not locals, therefore make your signs meaningful.

Posted in Website/Event, BEFORE the visit | No Comments »

Thursday 27 July 2006 by Edward.

uConnect, Skype’s phone converter, takes the signal from your traditional home phone and converts it into digital data for transmission over the Internet. Simply attach your uConnect to your regular phone line and your computer’s USB port, load up the included Skype software, dial **, and your ready for bargain-basement long distance VoIP calling! VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) allows you to make free phone calls using your Internet connection.

This is perfect for North Americans with Skype’s free North American calling, and still a great deal for anyone else because of skype’s very low calling rates.

Posted in mobile phone, DURING the visit | No Comments »

Wednesday 26 July 2006 by Edward.

Google Maps Mobile (GMM) now lets you view directions, maps and satellite imagery on your mobile phone, and locate nearby places of interest — restaurants, theatres and banks.

It doesn’t take long for a user group to form! Here are some excerpts from the Google Maps for Mobile User Group (900 postings by 11:43am Atlantic Time, Canada).

GMM works in Poland
“… I am most excited about being able to build my own mobile ‘mash-ups’.
In 4 years time FIFA will be held in South Africa .. a good idea to get it done there.
“Working a trip to London, trying to leverage this … to look less like a tourist.”
“It would be very handy to be able to save locations as bookmarks …”.

Here’s a really useful tool for tourists stuck in traffic. GMM can be used to see real-time traffic in 30 US cities, so that you can either avoid the traffic or fully comprehend the mess you’re in.

Suppliers currently supporting GMM include: Alcatel, Audiovox, BenQ-Siemens, Blackberry, HP, HTC, LG, Mio, Motorola, NEC, Nokia, O2, Philips, Qtek, Sager, Samsung, Sanyo, Sharp, Sony Ericsson, TMobile and Toshiba.

What mashups will we see coming, especially with GPS/RFID-enabled phones?

Posted in mobile phone, Maps, DURING the visit, BEFORE the visit | No Comments »

Wednesday 26 July 2006 by Edward.

Word-of-mouth travel recommendations have been shown to be an effective way to direct travellers to “unknown” gems, and locations “off the beaten path”.

LocalWeekender is a free, community-based website site for ‘word-of-mouth’ recommendations. It’s an online guidebook of local, outdoor spots and weekend trips. Spots might be a quiet place to read a great book, a favourite jogging route, a small, tucked-away restaurant with a great dessert, or an un-named snowshoe trail.

Battle Creek , for example, is a great place to simply relax and walk. Sites are limited to the USA at present, not all are yet populated with recommendations, but I can see this site’s formula easily extend to other countries. The site’s webmaster emailed me and plans to include Canada very soon.

Roger A. Brooks‘ Rule 16 “The Rule of telling stories” states that ‘Great stories make the campfire memorable.’ Does your site tell a story? Sometimes it’s the little things that make a place special. I recall my unplanned visit to a small museum in Skagway, Alaska, 100 years after the great Alaskan gold rush. The museum was quaint, but the young curator told me the greatest story about the local Klingit Indians. That story made my museum visit indelibly memorable.

Posted in Website/Event, BEFORE the visit | No Comments »