Turning printed travel guides into online travel planning tools.

Situation

After the launch of their website, New Brunswick Tourism wanted to explore other methods of delivering online content, specifically to those that use the printed version of the Travel Guide to do some or all of their vacation planning. They believed a way to help people feel more comfortable with finding vacation information on the Web would be to create an online, bilingual version of their 300-page printed travel guide.

With an interactive format that mirrored the printed guide, users could search for information in a manner familiar to them. By encouraging more users to find tourism information online, New Brunswick Tourism believed this would eventually lead to fewer travel guides being printed, saving both money and resources. They also hoped to gain new customers and strengthen relationships with existing ones, while setting themselves apart as a leader in the industry. Additionally, this initiative would present a new channel for advertising sales.

Solution

To meet New Brunswick Tourism's request, T4G created a new digital publishing solution called the Digital Travel Guide. Based on T4G's popular Digital Publishing platform, the Digital Travel Guide allows users to flip through the online guide just as they would the printed version.

The Digital Travel Guide is an application powered using Flash presentation technology. It is a self-contained file that runs independently from any other back end system, so there are no concerns about slow load times, and it requires no downloads, plug-ins or complicated instructions. It's as simple as point and click.

As users flip through the guide, either page by page or by using the index view, page drop down menu or table of contents, they can zoom in on text and images that interest them. They can then click on these selections to link directly to either the official New Brunswick Tourism website or an appropriate vendor site (as specified by New Brunswick Tourism). In only two clicks, users can progress to more advanced online vacation planning.

Other beneficial features include a search function that allows users to look for information either in the Digital Travel Guide or on the New Brunswick Tourism website. Users can also print out single or multiple pages of the Guide, and forward the entire Guide to friends and family, making it a powerful word-of-mouth e-marketing tool.

Not only do users find the Digital Travel Guide easy to use, but so does New Brunswick Tourism. The Guide's Web-based administrative interface makes it simple to update everything in the Guide including zoomable images and copy blocks, internal and external links, search results, and key words.

This bridge between printed travel guide and website provides New Brunswick Tourism with a way to extend their offerings to a wider audience, thereby reaching and attracting more potential visitors.

Benefits

While the Digital Travel Guide's familiar format offers a range of benefits to the user with little or no experience with online travel planning, it also gives New Brunswick Tourism an expanded e-marketing advantage.

By utilizing the files that were already created for the printed travel guide, New Brunswick Tourism is able to save time and money by leveraging these investments as the starting point for the Guide. As the printed guides are updated on an annual basis, so too can the Guide be quickly updated resulting in increased integration between the online and offline channels. And because the application is scaleable, the Guide can grow and adapt to meet the changing needs of New Brunswick Tourism.

In addition to increasing tourism business, the Digital Travel Guide also offers a new revenue-generating opportunity for New Brunswick Tourism through its external links. New Brunswick Tourism can set links in the Guide to go directly to vendors or other paying advertisers' websites.

With the Digital Travel Guide, New Brunswick Tourism can reach more potential visitors by offering more ways to research and plan vacations in the province.

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