EDS contribution in Romanian e-tourism

RFA No. 186 – A – 00 – 03 – 00101 – 00 Final ReportEDS provided technical assistance and financial support of a three-museum, six week exhibitionof Maramures in Bucharest. Based at the Romanian Peasant Museum, the Natural HistoryMuseum and the Museum of Geology, the event was entitled “The Country is Full of Countries -Country of Maramures.”With all three museums involved, the event helped to promote Maramures as a tourismdestination amongst tourists and expatriates. The following activities were supported as part ofthe EDS contribution:1. Temporary Exhibition at The Museum of the Romanian Peasant: “Maramures in the Mirror,” an interactive event consisting of the three exhibitions at the three neighboring museums;2. Traditional Music Concert – two generations of fiddlers;3. Printing an Exhibition Brochure, which was distributed free of charge together with a unique entrance ticket for all three museums;4. Hosting a Gastronomical Evening of Maramures Cuisine.2.3.7 IT Interventions for Improving Tourism PromotionRedesign of www.mturism.ro and www.romaniatravel.comThe National Tourism Authority owns and operates both a corporate website and a promotionalwebsite located in Romania and other being promotional sites hosted overseas. Because of theinconsistent image being portrayed between all sites, the lack of modern user interface andinformation of poor quality on some, EDS suggested that the Authority update all the sites alonga common theme using modern Internet technology. The original assistance proposal draftedwas to be supported by the RITI Access Project (a USAID-funded IT-related program).However, their involvement did not come to fruition and EDS was left with the obligation toassist. While there were strong arguments in favor of supporting the initiative, EDS wasconcerned with the apparent lack of commitment, involvement, and planning on behalf of theNTA. Nonetheless, a was finalized with Kondiment SRL for the redevelopment of two websitesfor the National Authority for Tourism. The first site, the NTA’s corporate site (www.mturism.ro)was redesigned and updated. The second site, a consumer site (www.romaniatravel.com) wasalso redesigned and the NTA hired a contractor to develop new content. The consumer site’sredesign was based on recommendations made by the EDS IT component based on a studythey completed on best practices in national tourism websites.Search Engine Optimization (SEO)As more and more tourists research, plan, and purchase vacations over the internet, websitesaiming to capture and entice potential tourists must increasing design their sites around criteriathat results in improved search engine rankings. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is aprocess in which a website is analyzed by qualified professionals, who then issue a set ofrecommendations aimed at increasing the site’s search engine rankings resulting in increasedtraffic to the site. Due to the growing importance of search engine rankings, EDS sponsored aselect few Romanian tourism industry websites. The Sibiu Town Hall (www.sibiu.ro), ASTRAmuseum (www.muzeulastra.ro), ANTREC (www.antrec.ro) and ARTCE B&B (www.bed-and-breakfast.ro) websites were chosen for optimization consultation. The NTA website(www.romaniatravel.com) and the Maramures County Council Tourism portal(www.visitmaramures.ro) were also optimized as part of their design contracts. An RFP for the 4sites was issued and awarded to KSD SRL for implementation (the individual work for every sitewas quoted separately). The contracted company issued preliminary reports on each website,edited a guidebook for webmasters, decided upon the keywords in Romanian and other foreignlanguages and started the SEO process through the issuance of positioning reports. The Page 56 of 128

RFA No. 186 – A – 00 – 03 – 00101 – 00 Final Reportwebsites were subject to the following processes: initial monitoring, personalization of pagestitles, descriptions and keywords, implementation of a friendly site architecture, a Googlesitemap added, written guidelines for webmasters developed and delivered, an RSS news feedadded, and the sites were submitted for inclusion to over 300 manually edited web directories.Maramures County Council Tourism Portal (www.visitmaramures.ro)EDS issued an RFP for the development of a tourism web portal for Maramures County Counciland Antiq Design, based in Brasov, was selected as the contractor. The site map was createdalong with basic design work. The website’s content and photographs were developed internallyby EDS staff from Bucharest and Sibiu. The new website incorporated a large number ofactivities that EDS completed in Maramures including: branding, asset mapping, traditionalrecipes and cultural routes. The website is maintained and updated regularly by the MaramuresCounty Council Tourism Information Center.Panoramic Tours of Bucovina - Collaboration with PanoramaxPanoramax, an IT company specializing in creating 360 degree virtual tours provided, free ofcharge, 50 tours of the Bucovina region. EDS facilitated the visit of Panoramax to the region andhas passed along to all Bucovina stakeholders the information required to upload these tours,free of charge, to their own proprietary websites. The tours can be viewed atwww.panoramax.ro/bucovina.Dezvoltare_Turism_Romania@yahoogroups,comIn 2005, the EDS Tourism team started a yahoo tourism discussion group, which wasadministered by EDS until the end of the project at which point moderator duties passed to theexecutive director of the National Association of Travel Agencies. At the time of writing, thegroup has 158 members and over 900 messages have been posted on the site.Web Reservations International – Free Online Booking for GuesthousesWeb Reservations International (WRI) is an Irish company that enables real-time credit cardreservations at no cost to, and with minimal requirements of, the property owners themselves.Once a property owner registers his property on WRI’s website, the property’s rooms/bedsbecome available for online booking through WRI’s own site and on over 1000 affiliated travelwebsites.Online booking of accommodations is the fastest growing avenue for tourists making roomreservations. Every year more and more tourists are using the Internet to plan their vacationsand online room reservation is a key ingredient in this process. By having the capability toreceive room reservations via the Internet local businesses stand to gain more exposureworldwide as well as increase room-night sales. Western tourists, especially independenttravelers, prefer to book reservations online and are increasingly unwilling to make the extraeffort needed to locate available rooms via more traditional methods (travel agents, telephone,etc.). Through the efforts of the EDS Program, guesthouses were encouraged to enroll withWRI. 17 guesthouses, members of the Association for Rural Tourism in Transylvania (ATRT),and 2 guesthouses in Bucovina, members of the Tourism Association Bucovina, have beenenrolled.2.4 Increased Access to Credit2.4.1 Access to Finance WorkshopsFour EU Awareness training events were implemented in Maramures, Sibiu, Sighisoara andBucovina targeting small tourism entrepreneurs, guesthouse owners, and artisans. The syllabus Page 57 of 128

EDS contribution in Romanian e-tourism

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EDS contribution in Romanian e-tourism — Document Transcript

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