Heri rants justifiably about Tourisme Montreal spending $1.5 million on a yet another crappy flashy brochure website.
Before an agency embarks on such a high budget exercise ($1.5 for a website is a gigantic budget), I’d want to ask the following:
- How will they measure ROI?
- Who is the audience?
- What are the key metrics?
- What budget is there for iterating and adjusting the site?
While ‘user-generated content’ is no panacea, I’d suggest there are good uses for it, especially if we target those people I call Ambassadors.
Montreal has a lot to offer. When a friend told me he was considering a visit, I sent him Jazz Festival information, because he’s a jazz fanatic. Montreal has a festival, event or point of interest for just about every taste. I was effectively acting as an ambassador. An ambassador can be a local, or a person that visited your city and loved it so much they tell others.
One key metric I’d suggest for a Tourism promotion site is how many ambassadors used it to invite friends and family with targeted content.
For people that come visit me, I have created a google map (with the ‘My Maps’ feature) with recommended spots in my neighbourhood, places to see and public transit information. Combine the implicit data from many of those mash-ups, and you can have a list of ‘most recommended’ places and events.
Considering you can’t properly bookmark a page and that there’s no ‘tell a friend’ feature, I’d venture that idea was never even considered. Tourisme Montreal’s project hasn’t even caught up with staples of the 1990’s web marketing.
One nit to pick with Heri: I would squarely blame the agency for this failure. They should know the web if that’s their medium, and be ready to educate clients or refuse work that reflects so poorly on them.
1 comment so far ↓
It’s a pity the Flash navigation does not permit proper bookmarks. However, they seem to have features to share bookmarks and itineraries.
I’ll have to try it out.
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