Website with Interactive Plan and E-Tourism - Essay Example

?The current business enterprises for the most part take on e-commerce to accomplish diverse business goals, and for this motive, the procedure of upholding a high value and effectual website is very important for a business to reinforce its customer relationships and to outshine in business dealings. In the context of travel and tourism, the information concentrated and customer-oriented environment of the industry appears to be predominantly suitable for the espousal of e-commerce. Design In terms of the design, it is apparent that the website attracts the attention of the visitors by its colorful graphical components. Doodles can be seen on the top of the main page, which depict the various cultural elements of Malaysia, and are consistent with the tourism theme. These are basically aimed at giving the visitors of the website an overview of the ways they can stay in touch. However, by incorporating the depictions of the Malaysian culture they serve to grab the attention of the people who are interested in travelling to Malaysia. Moreover, it can be seen that there is a blank white background which makes all the colorful images and text pop out and make it more visible. Websites with image backgrounds are often termed as "amateur", due to the fact that it's mostly unprofessional sites that use those. Famous, reputed websites like Google, Yahoo, eBay and Amazon etc. don’t use unprofessional backgrounds which have images. The website has also given a great deal of thought to organization. This is as important as the overall aesthetics of the website because everything is compact and does not confuse the visitors by haphazard information. It also does not make the website look uninteresting with big, useless chunks of information that will bore the visitor. The website has also refrained from using frames.  Even though using frames will improve the usability, the address bar does not change as you switch pages. That makes it impracticable for anyone to bookmark a particular page in the site if they wish to, or emailing it to a friend to share the page (Bluejay, 2001). Lastly, the images are high quality- but compressed at the same time so as to reduce the time needed to open them up in the website and therefore, reducing the time that the visitors have to wait to see the images. The font is also very visible and simple in order to place more emphasis on the pictures surrounding and making them more attention grabbing (Website design: Interpersonal Qualities of a good web designer, 2006) Content Over and over again we have always have the sense of hearing SEO companies and SEO consultants’ affirm that content is king, in terms of search engine optimization campaigns. They are nowadays considered as correct in terms of such positioning. This is because of the fact that content has a lot of contributions in an SEO campaign, among these are contents helping as a roadmap to endorse the website to the search engines by incorporating keywords or key phrases into the content which is going to be crawled and indexed by the rummage around engine bots or crawlers. Another is that the content is a boulevard where website owners can encourage the website visitors to adapt from being a mere visitor to becoming a client. Content nevertheless, must always be kept or written in towering quality. (Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), 2002) The website truly Malaysia is very appropriate in terms of its content. The content must not be robotically generated. This means that the content must not just be taken and amended by an application; it should always be written by an actual human being as the meaning being put into words is also for the use of a human being. The content is interesting, as boring content will not be able to keep the visitor on the website, thus raising the websites’ spring back rate; it is hence important to make all content attractive, adding underneath images and charming texts as well as interesting titles that would really help in keeping your visitors from straight away going to another website. I don’t see any material that seems to be a copied content; contents are unique as much as possible and the product is of its own intellect. This means that you must always keep your content only one of its kind, that way not only would you avoid being sensitive of copyright breach but also you would be gaining significant traffic. Interactivity Website with interactive plan exerts a pull on more visitors than any inert website. It draws visitors, holds their attention and pushes them to take some action. If you use interactive design, your website can advantage in numerous ways such as: - An interactive website gives a stage to the visitor to interact unreservedly, carve up views, give judgment etc. This way, your customers get the chance to interact with you, the site owner as well as others who stopover and they feel confident to return to the website again. - Second, you can carry out a research or a survey on your website. You can ask your customers what they liked about your product and what were the weaknesses? These surveys help you in outlining where you are lessening short of customer's expectations and what steps you should acquire to triumph over those shortcomings. - A highly developed interactive web site design also helps in e-mail marketing. - With the help out of interactive web designs, you can expediently make changes in your website as and when you wish without taking the help of any expert website designer. (Interactive Website: Top 7 Benefits) I think Malaysia Tourism is highly interactive as the front page is very revealing and can gain the attention of the consumer easily. I think it definitely covers all of the above mentioned qualities. Search options are very obvious and can be searched upon easily. Similarly, Login profiles are also quite apparent and can be easily accessed. And the communication between user and system is also very comprehensible for consumer. Cut short, the webpage is exceedingly interactive and fulfills the criteria of the website being interactive very correctly. Usability Usability is the amount to which a product can be used by specific users to attain specified goals with efficacy, competence and contentment in a specified background. The main aim of the website is to simplify the use of technical equipment, web pages, software etc. In reality, as chalk and cheese users have different needs, hence a system “friendly” to one may feel very mind numbing to another (Nielsen, Usability Engineering p.23). Malaysia Tourism very liberally fulfils the criteria of effectiveness, efficiency and user friendliness. Navigation, interaction ability, closeness to reality, perception, credibility, design/layout, and language is all up to the mark and can be easily understood by the consumer. Similarly, content quality, network, community, consumer specific adaptations tell the story of website being efficient in every context. High quality design, sociability/cheerfulness, error handling and accessibility show the quality of the website in terms of user friendliness, which to me, is the most important quality. Moreover, the tagline of the company is very short and precise but the problem is since the upper part of the website is so full of small details and pictures, the tagline can be ignored by the client in such a chaos. All corporate information is grouped in one area for the consumer’s ease, for example for the best hotels in Malaysia; the whole list is available on the right side of the website and is very much visible to a naked eye. The website emphasizes the site's top high-priority tasks for example the slogan ‘No traffic jams, No jostling crowds, no hassling’ is a catchy line and can grab the client’s attention easily and with a slight smile too. Examples of real sites content are also there to enhance the knowledge of the consumer. The website uses Visual Design to Enhance, not Define, Interaction Design. Investment into software usability testing can proffer significant returns. Examples of these are in the areas of growth costs, technological support costs, sales and consumer productivity. These benefits can only be grasped through thorough usability testing of software throughout the improvement process, whether it is by testers alone or with user taking part. It is foreseeable that as the software testing industry matures, non-functional testing types are given superior priority. This holistic loom is indispensable in transporting products that are not only functionally accurate, but that also sustain their users. Usability testing refers to weighing up the ease with which users can gain knowledge of and use a product. The scope of this turn of phrase, however, can mean unlike things to different people. Some people refer to usability testing as only the procedure that employs applicants who are delegate of the target population to weigh up the degree to which a product meets specific usability criteria. Other practitioners use the expression worldwide to refer to any method used to evaluate how easy a product or system is to use. The authors are inclined to harmonize with the latter explanation because our research has exposed that member involvement is pleasing, but not important, part of evaluating all features of system usability. Malaysia Tourism, the website has the content organized in a manner that provides useful content and puts important information at top of hierarchy. The sentences used are very precise and to the point. The website however, does not provide the customer the opportunity to get the page printed. Nevertheless, the font size used is very appropriate and is easily readable. The company uses the graphics very wisely. The option for site map is provided both at the top of the page as well as the bottom of the page. The webpage is very colourful and cheery and a lot of combination of black and white is observed, making it very striking and attention grabbing. The page has different font size used to reduce the element of dullness. Redundant Text Links are also there and most importantly, it provides user-controlled content. That is video channels and picture gallery is there to augment the awareness of the consumer. Tourism has become the world's biggest industry and its development shows a regular year-to-year increase. The World Tourism Organization predicts that by 2020 day-tripper arrivals around the world would boost over 200%. (World Tourism Organization, 2005) Tourism has become an exceedingly gung ho business for tourism purpose over the globe. Aggressive pro is no longer ordinary, but progressively more driven by science, information technology and modernism. Full of life packaging is significant to today's travel commerce, such as airlines, hotels, tour operators and travel agencies, to fashion convention packages to consumers. Our objective is to extend a dais to allow dynamic packaging using the up-to-the-minute Internet technologies, such as Semantic Web, Web services, and Web processes since information broadcasting and barter are the key vertebral column of the travel industry. Development of a new “fun and informative” e-service for a particular web site is very crucial for its success. As it would allow more consumer traffic to the website and the interest of the consumer, will increase and may result in word-of-mouth promotion of the website. I came across a website http://www.tripadvisor.com/, an e-tourism website for Paris. Paris is one of the most beautiful cities in the world and has a very large tourism industry (Paris Tourism). The fun and informative e-service that it offers is very entertaining and can take at least an hour or two of the visitor’s time. The homepage strikes with a box named ‘Plan for the Perfect Trip’ with sub-categories for the client to choose for the location, Flights, Hotels, Things to do, Cruises, Vacation rentals and forums hence making it easier for the customer to plan the trip perfectly and easily and time is saved too plus exciting the customer with the new adventure (Tripadvisor, Best Beaches of 2011). Another interesting feature of the webpage is Trip Ideas. By clicking at it, you get to view different options of different travel ideas, like places that you want to go to with parents or your friends or if you are adventurous or if you like calm soothing beaches etc. Right after that the option where you want to go for example Africa, Asia, and North/South America etc. The two are linked so that you click your travelling taste and then the part of the world you want to visit and last but not the least you click the button Inspire Me and you get the perfect options for your trip in a particular part of the world. It is expected that almost $800 billion will be depleted on travel and tourism in 2011 and nearly two billion business and leisure trips will be made in the United States single-handedly. How will these travelers discover where to stay, eat, shop and play? (Kenyon, J 2011). How will they learn about the businesses in your town? What Virtual Malaysia can do to make it website more informative and fun (New mind etourism Solutions). Interactive maps are an ultimate way for hollows of commerce, travel organizations, cities, towns, or other groups to sponsor their local business community. Obviously, by now they have a printed map, toting up an online edition increases the visibility of your members and lures new businesses to join. As an organization, the website might present a basic catalog on the map as a association benefit. If Malaysia Tourism want to fashion a source of revenue for your group consider selling first-class listings that display ads, photos, video, or links (Cardoso, J 2004). These days’ people look forward to to find maps universally they go. Malaysia Tourism should start with town or community map and produce a nice map illustration. Countless artists and cartographers can draw one for the company or company can pay for a map of town or region from one of the many map providers that can be found online. Once the map is drawn online, look for businesses that want to publicize on your map and then congregate images and metaphors from them. Upload the map using online mapping applications and make your website more interactive. (Tourism Management) Benefits the company will get by providing interactive maps online. Firstly, it can update the map anytime unlike a paper map that depends on extensive print series. Secondly, maps are accessible online anywhere, anytime.  Using a stylized or cartoon-like map icon helps in highlighting the magnetism in a specific area.  Maps can tie to advertiser's web sites and give them more traffic. Businesses can be sort out to make it effortless for people to find what they call for. Viewers get a visual notion of an area that beguiles them to visit. Finally, adding an online version of a black and white map increases the worth to advertisers. Creating convincing and accommodating interactive maps is trouble-free when you use an online tool like Maps Alive. Just upload your area map and then add photos, descriptions and video for locations on your map. The Maps Alive software makes map interactive without any indoctrination. You can even implant your map right in your own web page and make updates at any time (Law and  Bai, 2006). Last but not the least, Facebook nowadays is a worldwide famous social network. The spanking new Facebook “Like” button has been active since early April and this new feature is providing evidence to be a benefit for the hospitality industry. It is giving hotels and resorts an additional opportunity to advertise and connect with potential clients. Similarly, it can help tourism websites with the same intensity. If Virtually Malaysia provides a ‘Facebook Like’ button at one of the corner of the page, it means an increase in website traffic from fascinated clients. This also means they can use the third party “Like” purpose on the website to connect honestly with your different hotels, visiting guides Facebook Page.  For customers who have already visited Malaysia, it would be appropriate to use a controlling tool of concessions to enable Facebook contact. It can also place messages on flyers, newsletters stating “Click Like” on our website and get 10% off your next visit with us! (Marsh, B, 2010). Using all the above-mentioned fun and informative techniques can make the Malaysia Tourism more interesting for online users. Malaysia is already known for its beauty and diverse culture, one of the world’s best places to visit. A little ado would make the industry touch new horizons with increased profits. REFERENCES: Cardoso, J, ‘E-Tourism: Creating Dynamic Packages using Semantic Web Processes’ retrieved on April 30, 2011, from http://www.w3.org/2005/04/FSWS/Submissions/16/paper.html Cardoso, J 2004, ‘Modeling Quality of Service for workflows and web service processes’, Web Semantics: Science, Services and Agents on the World Wide Web Journal, 1(3): p. 281-308. ‘E-Tourism is here’, retrieved on April 30, 2011, from http://www.etourismishere.com/ ‘Interactive Website: Top 7 Benefits’, retrieved on April 30, 2011, from http://www.drostdesigns.com/interactive-website-top-7-benefits/ Kenyon, J 2011, ‘Using Interactive Tourist Maps to Promote Your Business Community’, EzineArticles, retrieved on April 30, 2011, from http://EzineArticles.com/5936945 Law, R and  Bai, B 2006, ‘Website Development and Evaluations in Tourism: A Retrospective Analysis’, Business and Economics, retrieved on April 30, 2011, from http://www.springerlink.com/content/v72755n814503645/ Marsh, B, 2010, ‘Facebook ‘Like’ –How it can benefit your hotel’, etourism partner, retrieved on April 30, 2011 from http://www.etourism.com.au/blog/63/facebook-like-benefit-hotel.html New mind etourism Solutions, retrieved on April 30, 2011, from http://www.newmind.co.uk/ ‘Paris Tourism’, retrieved on April 30, 2011, from http://www.paris-tourism.com/ ‘Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)’ 2002, retrieved on April 30, 2011, from http://www.bsolveit.com/faq/qa-12--what-are-the-qualities-of-a-good-website.htm ‘Tripadvisor’ Best Beaches of 2011, retrieved on April 30, 2011, from http://www.tripadvisor.com/ Tourism Management’, BCHughes, retrieved on April 30, 2011, from http://www.bchughes.ca/tourismmanagement.php ‘Website design: Interpersonal Qualities of a good web designer’ 2006, retrieved on April 30, 2011, from http://www.sigmainfotech.com.au/articles/websitedesign.html WTO, World Tourism Organization. 2005. http://websitehelpers.com/design/ Read More