Lucerne Tourist Board redesigned its website www.luzern.com

The Lucerne Tourist Board has redesigned and optimized its website www.luzern.com. The new website features online large images, informative texts in 14 languages and a user-friendly navigation. Visitors to the website can now set their “Favourites” to compile their own tailor-made brochure according to their interests and duration of stay. One thing hasn’t changed, however: all information on events and weather, Webcams and social media tools will be continuously updated.

Mesa CVB Launches Gadget-Loaded Web Site

The Mesa Convention & Visitors Bureau (Mesa CVB) unveiled a new website, featuring updated Internet functions that will help the tourism organization promote Mesa’s core attributes to the online consumer. The site, designed and hosted by Tucson-based Simpleview, utilizes numerous new and innovate tools and gadgets that are in-demand by today’s Internet user. From up-to-the-minute social media feeds for Twitter and Facebook to the addition of a coupon function for Mesa attractions and tourism-related businesses, consumers can expect more user-friendly access to travel-related content for Mesa, Arizona.

The website overhaul re-organized the destination under four basic pillars: Hotels, Restaurants, Calendar and How to Get Here. When laying out the site map it was critical to make the online travel resource easy to navigate and these four categories were selected based on most popular search terms from the previous website. The site’s content was completely updated and now reflects bold Mesa imagery that changes based on the season/time of year, as well as six sub-categories with tailored information for each unique audience: Tour & Trade, Media, Sports Planner, Meeting Planner and Visitors.

“There’s no question that online research affects travel-making decisions and as Mesa continues to announce key tourism-related developments it was important to have our website reflect our dynamic offerings as a destination,” said Robert Brinton, president and CEO of the Mesa Convention & Visitors Bureau. “Mesa is an attractive, affordable Southwest city and our website helps us portray this to the online consumer seeking out Arizona for leisure or business travel.”

New for website visitors is the integration of Google Maps™ mapping service which identifies any website listing on an interactive map of Mesa. The Listings Explorer option is a planning tool on the site that allows online visitors to plot all their potential travels on a map of Mesa and the surrounding area. The Explorer tool can narrow online searches to key topics and then further shrink the search results based on a variety of sub-topics. The result is a map of Mesa offerings tailored to each individual user which can be printed with complete address and detailed information on each attraction.

The VisitMesa.com web site is also one of the few domains designed by Simpleview that boasts the popular online activity of group coupons. Here, Mesa businesses can post group discounts to online visitors. The coupons, located under the Visitors Info tab, can be printed directly from the website. After selecting multiple discounts, guests have the option to view their “coupon pack” online and print their special discounts and offers at one time using this shopping-cart like function. Regular visits to the website are encouraged as new offers and discounts are posted daily.

Potential visitors can also search Mesa hotel rates through the online booking engine, Hotelicopter. This new booking service searches the best available rates from multiple properties allowing online viewers to price compare hotel rates on one screen with one date-range search. After selecting the property of choice, Hotelicopter then allows the viewer to compare best rates from multiple booking engines including Orbitz, Expedia, Hotels.com, Priceline and more.

Other signature features include updated reviews connected to each business listing through TripAdvisor. In addition, personalized virtual postcards can be sent to others via the Photo Video Tour section. The Mesa CVB’s complimentary brochures are also available for download directly from the site including the 2011 Official Mesa Visitors Guide and the Mesa Desert Guide.

Mesa is the second largest city in the Phoenix-metropolitan area with a population just shy of 470,000 residents. For more than 25 years, the Mesa CVB has been responsible for marketing Mesa, Arizona as a leading vacation, small meeting and sports travel destination to regional and national target audiences, including travel agents and group tour operators, meeting planners, leisure visitors and media.

 

Boom in Travel Audio Guides

First, Lonely Planet announced its audio walking tours in London for iPhone and iPod users. The five tours for Central London currently available have been developed from scratch in joint partnership with AudioGo and BBC.

“This is the first mobile product which we have created without using any pre-existing book content,” said Jeremy Kreitler, Lonely Planet’s vice president of wireless services. “It has been created with the on-the-go traveler in mind.”

The content includes expert reviews by Lonely Planet authors and historical audio from the BBC Archive. The guided tours take users through each place using GPS-location maps. The guides can be downloaded and used offline, so users can stop or adjust them as required.

Next up was Rick Steves’ Audio Europe for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. The collection includes 25 audio walking tours of sights in Europe and 200 tracks of travel tips and cultural insights from his radio shows.

“This app thrills the tour guide in me,” explains Steves. “The combination of hearing about the art as you see it heightens your ability to really appreciate it. It frees you up to maximize your focus and be in the artistic moment.”

Steves’ app also works offline and was developed in partnership with Seattle-based Treemo Labs. “This new technology is unique in the market because users can download and play not only audio files, but guided audio tours segmented by chapters with photos,” says founder and CEO Brent Brookler. “We leveraged our existing platform to match the needs of a traveler using Rick Steves’ content on the road. The end result was a very sophisticated, custom, audio-file download system.”

Where there’s a location-based app, there’s bound to be social media and user-generated content. This is where Broadcastr comes in. The social media start-up has just released a free iPhone app for “location-aware audio and storytelling.”

The app’s geoplay feature helps stream stories related to the user’s physical surroundings into their headphones. In addition to location, stories on Broadcastr can also be discovered by keyword, category, creator, rating or date. Users can create playlists, record and upload their own audio stories on the go, share it on Twitter and Facebook, and follow friends and listen to their stories.

Broadcastr is in public beta now, currently has more than 6,000 stories, and has formed partnerships with more than 100 cultural, historic and arts organizations. Co-founder and president Scott Lindenbaum is demonstrating the platform at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival (SXSWi).

via Boom in Travel Audio Guides – PhoCusWright Connect.

More Amtrak Trains to Get Free Wi-Fi

Following its well-received introduction on high-speed Acela Express trains between Boston and Washington, D.C., and last month’s addition of AmtrakConnectr on Amtrak Cascades trains in the Pacific Northwest, Amtrak has set the stage for further expansion of its popular on-board free Wi-Fi service in 2011.

Amtrak plans to install AmtrakConnect on Northeast Corridor services and on more West Coast trains by the end of this year. With the recent selection of Nomad Digital as its preferred technology provider for nation-wide deployment, the Amtrak labor forces at the Ivy City Maintenance Facility in Washington, D.C., and the Penn Coach Yard in Philadelphia soon will begin installing Wi-Fi equipment in more than 450 Amfleetr railcars.

In addition, Amtrak has now completed construction of a dedicated wireless network that significantly improves connectivity and delivers a true high-speed signal to trains while traveling through the New York tunnels and when stopped at the New York Penn Station platforms.

“In this digital age, it is more vital than ever that our customers have Internet connectivity while traveling,” said Emmett Fremaux Jr., Amtrak Vice President of Marketing & Product Development. “Through this expansion program, and coupled with our dedication to the continued improvement of this innovative product offering, Amtrak is prepared to meet this need.”Amtrak already provides amenities that give passengers a more relaxed travel experience than its competitors can offer, such as wider seats, ample legroom, at-seat power outlets on most services, and the ability to move about the train.

By adding free Wi-Fi as a permanent service Amtrak is using leading-edge technology to handle the next-generation needs of its passengers.”Nomad provides Internet links to trains around the world. This Amtrak contract ensures that trains in the USA will be among the best connected anywhere,” said Nigel Wallbridge, Nomad’s Executive Chairman.Future enhancements to the on-board Wi-Fi service offering include en-route entertainment options and real-time train position information so that passengers can track their journey’s progress.

In addition, as cellular providers upgrade their backhaul technology and infrastructure, Amtrak plans to upgrade that part of its system that relies on 3G to one that also utilizes emerging 4G technologies such as LTE and WiMAX, greatly increasing the available bandwidth and improving the network’s performance for passengers.A complete list of Amtrak trains and stations with Wi-Fi service is available on Amtrak.com.

via travmedia.com.