O. Fodor, Econsulting, Bratislava I. Smolák, Siemens PSE, Bratislava
European Tourism Destination Portal
Hradec Králové, 3.-4.4. 2006
Visiteurope.com Background & History
Services Technical Architecture Operation Concepts for new cooperations Future vision
Content
• The aim of the EU Commission funded 'European Tourism Destinations (ETD) Portal' is to develop an unique access point under European Travel Commission (ETC) owned URL www.VisitEurope.com to promote European destinations.
• The portal will address needs of both tourists originating form outside and within Europe. For the tourists, it must contribute to make European destinations more attractive and desirable.
Aim of the portal
• A unique access point to all NTO web sites with common user interface in En, Fr, Ge, It, Sp and Pt for better visibility and quicker search to select the most suitable information
• Pan European joint content and content from NTOs
• Drive more traffic to NTO sites
• Joint strong marketing of one access point
• Architecture for further ICT developments (mobile, B2B, Intranet..)
Main objectives
A result of a political will of Commission with Council Resolution in May 2002 `to reflect to strengthen position of Europe as a destination by using ICT´
Tourism Advisory Committee (TAC) & EC/DG ENTR:
Tourism Unit Action Plan ´Modern online public services´ adopted by the EU Council as part of the eEurope Action plan, June 2002
A tender of the program Interchange of Data between Administrations, June 2003
Steps to the project
Places•Access to National Web sites
•Search cities, etc
Create an attractive, efficient doorway...
Experiences•Search for Culture, Adventure, Events, etc
Practical Help•Travel planning, Money, Security, etc
The Portal – What is it?
Portal responsibilities
Agree Business
Plan
E-Commerce Competency Center
2-stage contract (€2m)
European Commission
Agree Portal specification
via EC Portal Steering Group
ETC member countries
• EC3, Vienna• Siemens, Vienna & Bratislava• Tiscover, Innsbruck• Lixto, Vienna• ITC-irst, Trento
The consortium
Delivery in 7 languages, adaptable to different world markets :
– 1st Phase : US (English), Canada (English & French) & Brazil (Portuguese)
– 2nd Phase : Latin America (Spanish) China (Traditional Chinese), Japan (Japanese), Russia (Russian)
– 3rd Phase : Possible Hispanic, simplified Chinese, Global versions for English…
Support richer content and more ‘experiential’ imagery– Experience section for pan European offers on various themes
among which Culture, Nature or Activities… Access to NTO data, e.g., events
– Most relevant events in Europe… Intelligent search and innovative ‘recommendation’
services … and other services such as flights search, weather
reports, etc
More services for customers
Selection of portal services
Sitemap ETD Portal
Home Experience Where To Go AccommodationHow to Travel
Useful Information
Virtual Europe
Tools Directory
Countries
Cities
Pan European Regions
By Plane
By Train
By Car
By Boat / Ship
Image Galleries
Livecams
eCards
Search
Travel Planner
Yellow Pages
Weather & Climate
Newsletters
Currency Converter
Calendar
Downloads
• Introductory Text
• Map• 2-3 current
reports• NTO ListLink• Flash Slide-
Show• Banners• Hot Deals• Top 5 events• Newsletter
registration• Currency
Converter• Weather &
Climate• Access to Travel
Planner• Quick Poll
Countries • Accommodation Categories
• Airport• Bank and Public
Holidays• Blood Alcohol
Concentration Limit for Drivers
• Camping & Caravanning
• Climate• Credit Cards• Crime Rate• Currency, Foreign
Exchange• Customs
Regulations• Drinking Age• Electricity• Emergency #• European
Languages• Food & Drink• Gas• Gifts to Buy• Health Tips &
Medical Aid• Motor Vehicle
Regulations• National Recipes• Opening Hours• Pet Imports• Postal Service &
Telephone • Speed Limits• Tap Water Quality • Taxes• Time Zone• Tipping Tradition• Toll Sticker
Activities
Nature
Culture
Events
Routes To Explore
Special For
Site Map Search Feedback FAQ Credits About ETC
Copyright Imprint
Innovation• Quality informations
• well structured - rich (networked) – focused
• Directory system (manually/semi-automatically maintained)
• Domain focused search engine (working in preset pool of info sources)
• Semantic extensions (reasoning over search results based on domain ontology)
• Recommendation engines (advanced algorithms, suggesting items of interests)
• SEO (improving visibility of the portal)
Lixto - rapidly creation of services with automated processed data from web
from any Web site,
personalized,
in real-time,
automatically,
and deliver data on visiteurope.com
Data extraction with Lixto
Flight search
ExternalData
Sources
NTOData
Sources
ContentFeeder
CMS
Portal Software
(Java, J2EE, Red Hat)
Portal architecture
Software packages of the ETD portal
Web Server + Servlet ContainerTomcat 5.x
PostgreSQL
RedHat CCM 6.1(WAF + CMS)
Hibernate
Spring Framework
Apache Commons Library
Apache Lucene
Operating System(Red Hat Linux)
Java 2 Enterprise Edition
ETD Portal services
Lixto technologies
Harmonise
Trip@dvice
Three pillars of portal operations
Marketing
ETD Portal
AdministrationContent
Three pillars of portal operations
• Administration• Operational (management)• Technical (HW & SW)
• Content• NTO and ETC contribution• other resources
• Marketing• eMarketing (sponsors, banners)• Traffic management (bringing traffic to the portal,
e.g. domain networking, SEO, classical marketing activities, … )
Focus at Europe
• Pan-European region (new tourism marketing brands)
• European experience (cross-border attractions, interests)
• Allowing countries to freely unite (creating tourist unions in Europe)
Playground for cooperations
• co-opetition on all levels
Infrastructure layer
Process layer
Business layer
Subsites
• Dedicated for specific needs of Countries, Regions and other domain partners
• loose integration of subsites with local portals
•New chances for European Regions
… and the Future
• First universal access point into the electronic tourism domain
• Hub in the eTourism network• not only European …
• major tourism portals worldwide (NTOs privileged)• creation of virtual organizations ?
• Collaboration (co-opetition)• content level• service level
… and the Future
• Integration of GIS• projection of entire portal content on geographic
coordinates
• => Mobile based services• Recommendations based on current position of the
tourist• Projection on electronic maps used in GPSdevice• Local travel bag• Enhanced marketing of tourism services (e.g. via
SMS)
… and the Future
• Platform for publishing in “exotic” languages
• for those countries, that do not have local support
• Directly integrated support for translation services
• optimising effort and publishing time• reducing costs• serving
• internal administrators• internet visitors
Thank you for your attention !
Oliver FodorEConsulting/[email protected]
Ivan SmolákSiemens [email protected]
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