About Us
- Background
- Tourism Wales UK
- New Spatial Presentation
- Staying in Wales and Visit Wales
- The Team
- Participating
- Marketing Panel
- Contact
Background
Long before the Internet the tourism experience started when we walked into the high street travel agent, were welcomed by professional staff, thumbed through brochures and contemplated the wide choice of package tours available to different European destinations for our main summer holiday.
Since then the the pattern has changed considerably with short breaks more popular and the Internet to hand to go anywhere in the world. The holiday experience starts now when we enter a destination website that's been given a lot of thought, and the welcome begins as we browse through the content. The more usable the site the greater the experience, the more friendly the site the greater the welcome and we warm immediately to the destinations it represents.
In it's third stage of evolution the Internet is now revolutionising the presentation of information, using spatial data to pin-point individual towns and villages that welcome visitors by working together to put themselves firmly on the world tourism map. What was once macro-marketing has become micro-marketing with collectives of town and village people wanting to make their mark on the worldwide web.
Tourism Wales UK
The launch of a new national website doesn't occur every day and when it does it has to be something rather special. Tourism Wales UK is not just one website but over 1,000 and counting, each developed spatially to cover over 275 villages and towns, 12 regions and 27 different niche markets for tourism to Wales.
All sites can be accessed directly from the home page making navigation simple. What's more, they're all registered independently with the search engines to maximise visit numbers. This is brilliant news, not only for tourism businesses taking part in the programme but for search engines too, producing more quality booking enquiries!
Tourism Wales UK is live and fully functional at tourism.wales.info but as with all websites ready to embrace new developments it will always be work in progress
New Spatial Presentation
The new spatial presentation means there's no longer any need for tedious listings. Users can see on the maps what they're searching for then click straight through to participating businesses’ own websites. And it doesn’t stop there!
Personal Websites
We've built personal websites with unlimited picture galleries for all businesses taking part in the new programme using the same spatial principles. Potential guests can see nearby attractions, make booking enquiries, get detailed driving directions, and click straight through to participating businesses’ own websites. Participants can use these sites to replace or upgrade their own websites if they wish. The choice is entirely theirs.
Staying in Wales and Visit Wales
So what’s the relationship with Staying in Wales and Visit Wales ?
Staying in Wales continues as a Visit Wales distribution channel supported in full by subscription members. Tourism in Wales UK expands on this and is FREE to Staying in Wales subscription members registered and paid up by 31st April 2008 in acknowledgement of their continuing support.
The new site complements the work done by Visit Wales within the Welsh Assembly Government in key areas such as quality assurance, training and strategic marketing of Wales, and enables powerful tactical and 'micro-destination' marketing based on places and events in Wales. This has been made possible by the spatial approach adopted early on by Staying in Wales, expanded now through the use of Google® Maps, Google® Earth and other internet mapping platforms.
The Team
Chris Edwards
Director of Sales and Marketing
Email: chris.edwards@wales.info
Chris is 46, born and educated in the Cynon Valley, has worked for himself and private business most of his life with the exception of a two-year stint as an insurance company salesman where he was in the top five performers in the UK and a regular member of the honours club.
He has built successful businesses in publishing including free offline free newspapers and online portals. By 1996 he was designing high-ranking websites, working out why they were performing so well in the search engines and pioneering the science of Search Engine Optimisation.
Chris has made contacts around the world and today moderates and advises on some of the most respected SEO Forums on the Internet including highrankings.com, digitalpoint.com, smallbusinessbrief.com. He has on his client list Adobe Inc and Norwich Union, although working with small businesses gives him the most pleasure.
His greatest passions are his family, rugby and marketing. He is an active member of his community and local rugby club, Resolven RFC, where, although no longer playing, he sponsors 3 teams, runs the Mini and Junior section, coaching the Under 8s and Under 9s. He is also a member of the Vale of Neath Parochial Church Council.
Terry Jackson
Director of Strategy and Planning
Email: terry.jackson@wales.info
Terry Jackson co-founded This Week–Wythnos Yma, the national tourism newspaper for Wales, in 1988 with business partner Steven Potter who later went on to develop http://londontown.com. After producing the original blueprint for Visit Wales in 1996 and developing the Sustainable Transport for Tourism Wales marketing campaign, he engineered the Internet debut of This Week in 1997, embedding spatial information into the system soon after. The new site was launched at the Cymru'r Milflwydd tourism showcase at the 2000 National Eisteddfod of Wales, where an historic 'Owain Glyndwr' re-enactment was staged as part of the celebrations.
In 2004 the newspaper was switched entirely onto the Internet and Staying in Wales was founded to take forward the Taste of Wales scheme abandoned by the Welsh Development Agency in 2003. The Wales.info domain was acquired a year later under licence with a ten-year option to purchase.
Terry is a long-time director of Wales Rural Forum and a member of various steering groups including the Rural Resource, AGI Cymru and Hidden Britain Wales. Outside his passion for work, his main interests are family, Formula 1 motor racing, supporting his local Histon FC football team, developments in Eastern Europe and an oral history project involving his old school.
Arvind Nehru
Webmaster and Network Manager
Email: arvind.nehru@wales.info
Arvind Nehru is 28, born in Bangalore, India where in 2002 he achieved his BSc in Computer Science. In 2004, after working two years in a small company as a Quality Assurance Executive, he joined This Week Wales as Network Manager.
In 2005 he enlisted at Bangor University on an intense two-year Masters degree course in Computer Science during which time he was building and running websites and web applications on a daily basis including http://walescalendar.com and http://stayinginwales.com.
Working under the tutelage of senior web developers and consultants, he has gained considerable experience building CSS pages using new digital mapping platforms and is a member of several web development communities including Google Maps, Google Earth and semantic Web 2.0 applications.
Arvind is a keen cricketer, follower of Formula1 and Moto GP.
Appointment to be Confirmed
Director of Product Development
Email: info@wales.info
In the fast-changing environment of the worldwide web, the role of director of product development is crucial. Wales.info is in the final stages of recruiting an experienced Internet professional who has skills in web management, design and navigation, codewriting, cartography, taxonomy and search-engine optimisation. Watch this space!
Participating
Participation in the new programme is FREE to all fully paid-up Staying in Wales subscribers as at 30th April this year and will remain FREE on subscription renewal each year. A full list of new programme benefits and existing benefits can be seen at http://tourism.wales.info/registration.asp#intro.
From 1st May this year all new subscribers to Staying in Wales who wish to join the new programme can do so for £15 per month plus VAT (including their Staying in Wales subscription) with an initial £15 plus VAT set-up charge.
Marketing Panel
Subscription members are urged to join the Marketing Panel to help further their own particular interests and to have a big say in how Tourism in Wales UK programme is developed.
Contact
Email: Please click here to contact us by email with any comments you may have.
Phone: +44 (0) 7770 574130
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