Technology
Reindeer in Finnish Lapland. Photo from Visit Finland.
In my last post, I analyzed the six U.S. tourism websites that the travel site skift.com considers to be among the 20 best-designed such websites in the world.
I was particularly impressed with the Oregon and Los Angeles visitor websites. For me, great website design encompasses not just spectacular visuals and clean typography but easy navigability leading to compelling, well-organized content. The other sites (Massachusetts; Washington, DC; Tennessee [Fall season]; and Florida, while all well designed, also contained some flaws.
If potential visitors — the baby boomer travelers that I focus on, in particular — get frustrated by not being able to find something they’re looking for right away, they may go elsewhere to find it rather than spending the crucial extra minutes on the site that might convince them to visit the destination. Tennessee, for example, has beautiful new sites for… Continue reading
Santa Monica Beach, an iconic site to visit in Los Angeles. Photo from Discover Los Angeles.
I read recently that there are something like 850 million websites in the world, and who knows how many are travel-related, but it must be at least in six figures.
So a new list by skift.com (itself one of the best travel websites) of “The 20 Best Designed Tourism Websites in the World” limits itself to official tourism sites of either countries, states, cities or regions — known as destination marketing organizations, or DMOs. That certainly makes it more manageable.
Even though I always take lists like this with a large shaker of salt, I agree with the sentiment expressed in the accompanying piece by Samantha Shankman: “Websites created by destination marketing organizations are some of the most underused resources in travel today.”
Skift’s analysis of the 50 most visited U.S. tourism websites,… Continue reading
The entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well, as companies produce gadgets that wouldn’t exist without smartphones. Or folks traveling with smartphones. Here are two that I think baby boomer travelers will find useful.
A little boy — someone’s grandson? — watches a video using a Keyprop to hold up the phone. Photo from Keyprop.
The first new gadget is pretty ingenious: it’s called a Keyprop. You can use it to prop up your phone so you can read from it, watch videos and or even take selfies (if you download an iPhone app) without having to hold onto your phone.
In the shape of a key — it fits on your key ring so you’ll always have it — Keyprop is made of hard rubberized material and comes in a variety of colors like green, red, blue and black. It fits virtually all smartphones by inserting the prong into the… Continue reading
Boomers still rely on old-fashioned print travel guidebooks — along with the latest apps.
Nancy Parode, who writes about senior travel at about.com, has a perceptive piece detailing eight reasons why a baby boomer or senior would make a good traveling companion. (Although I don’t like to mix the terms “senior” and “baby boomer” — for me, “senior” starts where “baby boomer” leaves off — I understand why others may at times lump them together.)
Among the eight reasons, Nancy writes, is that “We [boomers] don’t need high-tech devices to have a good time” and “won’t get too grumpy if our computers and smartphones don’t work.”
Now, I admit I do sometimes get grumpy in those situations, but Nancy’s point is that baby boomers have lived most of their lives without such technology and can adapt to life without them.
Similarly, she argues, baby boomers still know how… Continue reading
Dog catching Frisbee invites Provincetown visitors to “Stay and Play.” Image from iPtown app.
Provincetown, Massachusetts, at the tip of Cape Cod, has unveiled a free smartphone app that takes a whimsical approach to offering information to visitors — “befitting its image,” according to a press release announcing it.
Called iPtown, the app is produced by the town itself and promises the latest in digital technology. Visitors (or locals, for that matter), will be able to connect to businesses directly via phone, get directions “to anything in town a person could ever want to find,” as the release puts it, and generally locate things such as food and lodgings, shops, and special events as well as information like the weather and emergency services.
Known as an artists’ haven, Provincetown is playing off its reputation by featuring colorful images to direct users to different categories of information.
The “Stay and Play”… Continue reading
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